by Brent Lambi | Sep 13, 2026 | Political
HONEST POLITICS
WITHOUT READER SUPPORT
THIS COLUMN DISAPPEARS.
Brent Lambi
He Is Not Campaigning
For Them
He Is Campaigning For Himself – And They Know It.
A president with 33 percent approval has promised dozens of
candidates he will be with them “100% all the way to November.”
Forty-five of them have already found somewhere else to be.
THE IMMUNITY WAS NEVER HIS. IT BELONGS TO THE OFFICE.
HE IS RUNNING TO KEEP THE OFFICE FRIENDLY.
A CAMPAIGN THAT ENDS IN A COURTROOM IS NOT A PLATFORM.
IT IS A DEFENSE.
FORTY-FIVE OF THEM ARE STAYING HOME.
IN MY OPINION, THEY ARE WELL ADVISED.
SAVE THE REPUBLICAN PARTY FROM THE MAGA LIES!
THE DINNER IN THE PAVED-OVER GARDEN.
Wednesday night, in the Rose Garden
he had stripped out and covered with stone,
the President told his party’s most endangered
members he would campaign in every contest
that decides control of Congress. “I will be with
you 100% all the way to November,” he said.
“It’s all about 35 races.” Two days earlier, Reuters/
Ipsos put his approval at 33 percent, the
lowest of his political life and the third straight
month there. A YouGov survey has him underwater
on net approval in forty-seven states.
A president this far down is normally asked to
stay home. This one booked the tour himself.
AND THE INVITATIONS NOBODY WANTS.
Then read the other half of the story. His party
built him a convention in Dallas next week
(the first midterm convention in American history),
and Politico found that at least forty-five
Republican members and candidates will not
be there. Of more than seventy surveyed, most
had no plans to attend; dozens would not say.
The regrets were polite. David Valadao of California
and Max Miller of Ohio confirmed they
are out; Miller is staying home to campaign
and see his family. Chris Smith of New Jersey
and Andrew Garbarino of New York have district
events. Tim Burchett of Tennessee is “not
sure” and mentioned the price. Tom Barrett of
Michigan, who sat at Wednesday’s dinner, put
it about as plainly as a member can: he cannot
control what the President will say in Dallas,
but he can control where he is standing.
TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS TO
STAND THERE. The door charge for a House
member is $25,000 with a guest, and the better
packages run near $100,000. The proceeds
go to a nonprofit that does not have to name
its donors. One Republican called the whole
thing a waste of time and the planning a mess.
Another was blunter about the fee: he did
not want to go anyway, and the price made it
easier. A third gave the actual diagnosis: you
should not still be rallying your base in September;
you should be persuading independents,
and independents are not watching this.
“Nobody says no to this president
out loud. They simply discover
they are needed at home.”
AND THE WEBSITES QUIETLY REWRITTEN.
In Texas, Carlos De La Cruz’s homepage
no longer reads “TRUMP CONSERVATIVE.”
It reads “PROVEN CONSERVATIVE,” and the
line about serving as the President’s wingman
in Congress is gone. Eric Flores replaced
“SUPPORT PRESIDENT TRUMP’S AGENDA”
with “LOWER THE COST OF LIVING.” Mike
Lawler, who shared a stage with him in May,
now says only that the race will be decided by
his own record and his own vision. Not one
of them will say the word out loud. They just
find somewhere else to be. In my opinion, at
33 percent, they are well advised.
THE RÉSUMÉ HE IS RUNNING ON. Twice
impeached. Convicted in New York on thirty-
four felony counts of falsifying business
records, making him the first felon to take the
oath. Charged federally with conspiring to
obstruct the certification of an election, and
again with hoarding classified national-defense
documents and obstructing their return.
Neither case was ever tried. Neither ended in
acquittal. One was dropped because Justice
Department policy forbids prosecuting a sitting
president. The other was thrown out on a
technical question about how the prosecutor
was appointed; the appeal was quietly abandoned
once he held the pen.
Vote Like Jesus
Think Beyond Your Pocketbook
September 2, 2026
A ballot is a moral document. Eight questions on this year’s
ballot – and eight answers older than any party in America.
When I filed this case, I expected a straightforward
process involving discovery and documents.
If the record supported it, I also expected
the true wrongdoer to be named as a third
party defendant.
That is not what has happened. It is my
opinion that discovery in this matter is being
shaped by people whose names do not appear
in the case caption. I cannot prove that today,
and I will not tell readers otherwise. I can only
tell you what I believe and why I am acting on it.
I am therefore pausing my lawsuit.
I want to be plain about Berkshire Hathaway.
My view is that the company and its agents may
themselves have been used by someone else
who gave them a version of events and left
them to act on it.
If I am right, Berkshire is not the author of
this defamation but a vehicle for it. To the extent
that my filings suggested otherwise, my
apology is sincere.
My hope is that Berkshire Hathaway or its
agents will come forward or tell others what I
suspect they may already know: the origin of
this matter is federal.
I remain of the view that my dispute with
the federal government is ongoing and that the
government’s objective is to silence and discredit
me.
Free speech has cost me a great deal. In this
political climate, it is plainly not free.
Brent Lambi: The opinions expressed above
are solely those of the author.
A Pause and an Apology
An update on the Berkshire Hathaway defamation matter
and why I am putting my own case on hold for now.
“Berkshire is not the author of this defamation but a vehicle for it.”
A BIBLE IS NOT A CAMPAIGN PROP.
IT IS A JOB DESCRIPTION.
NO PARTY OWNS THIS ONE.
VOTE LIKE JESUS – AND VOTE LIKE YOU MEAN IT!
Source note: Scripture quotations are from the King James Version.
Confirmed he will not attend
Home to campaign and see family
Can control where he is standing
District events
“not sure” — cites the price
$25,000 minimum; packages near
$100,000
45 out; most of 70+ surveyed have no
plans
VALADAO (CA)
MILLER (OH)
BARRETT (MI)
SMITH (NJ),
GARBARINO (NY)
BURCHETT (TN)
THE DOOR
CHARGE
THE COUNT
THE POLITE REGRETS
THE SHIELD IS THE CHAIR, NOT THE
MAN. Judge Tanya Chutkan put it in writing.
She dismissed the January 6 case without
prejudice, noting that the immunity a sitting
president enjoys is temporary and expires
when he leaves office. The Supreme Court’s
ruling protects official acts of the presidency.
It does not protect Donald Trump. It protects
whoever occupies that chair. He is term-limited
out of it in January 2029. Two things stand
between him and a courtroom that year: a
Congress that will not impeach, and a Justice
Department that will not indict. Both are on
the ballot in nine weeks. In my opinion, that is
the entire campaign.
“He is not asking you to save the
country. He is asking you to keep a
friendly hand on the pardon pen.”
AND WHAT DID YOU GET FOR IT? Groceries,
gasoline, and premiums are not cheaper.
The war he swore he would end in twenty-four
hours ground on, and a new one in Iran has
wrecked the oil supply and your fuel bill. The
debt cleared $39 trillion. The Epstein files that
a unanimous Congress ordered released sit in
a drawer, three million pages deep.
WHAT DID GET BUILT. The East Wing: demolished.
A ballroom priced at $200 million,
then $300 million, then $400 million, now
trailing a $1 billion “security” request slipped
into an immigration package. $40 million in
taxpayer funds was appropriated for a triumphal
arch. Residence renovations of $377 million
this year against $39 million in 2025, an
increase of 866 percent. A garden paved for
umbrella tables that match Mar-a-Lago. Not
one family’s rent came down. His own members
now worry aloud that he will spend his
Dallas hour talking about the ballroom.
THE MEN HE PROMOTES. He elevates the
people who will not ask him a question and
pursues the ones who did. He pardons the loyal
and deports the roofer. He praises strongmen
and quotes them approvingly when they
call his prosecutions persecution. That is not
a conservative governing philosophy. In my
opinion, it is Vladimir Putin’s philosophy: rule
by loyalty, immunity by office, and a courtroom
reserved for critics.
WHAT AN HONEST CAMPAIGN WOULD
LOOK LIKE. Say what the groceries will cost.
Say whether the Iran war gets a vote. Say
whether the Epstein files get opened. Say who
pays for the ballroom. A member who can
answer those four questions does not need a
president in his district, and a member who
cannot will not be saved by one.
THE HONEST PART. He was acquitted in
both impeachments; that is the constitutional
result and it counts. The federal charges
were never proved to a jury, and a five-year
clock may already have run out on some of
them. The Republican National Committee
says enthusiasm for Dallas has been incredible,
and the Associated Press reports that
the overwhelming majority of Republicans
on the ballot are still embracing him; De La
Cruz’s campaign denies backing away at all,
and several of the members skipping Dallas
cite nothing worse than a calendar. Presidents
have always campaigned for their parties, and
all of them renovate the house. None of that
answers the question in front of us: why is a
man at 33 percent spending every remaining
day of this election on the ballot line instead of
the grocery line?
Sources: Reuters and AP, Sept. 2, 2026 (Rose Garden dinner);
Politico survey and The New York Times, Sept. 1-2,
2026 (Dallas convention); AP, Aug. 28, 2026 (campaign
websites); Reuters/Ipsos, Aug. 31, 2026; YouGov/The Economist;
United States v. Trump dismissal order (D.D.C., Nov.
2024); Trump v. United States, 603 U.S. (2024); Forbes, May
13, 2026; Axios, Aug. 13, 2026; Fortune, Apr. 6, 2026.
To every candidate for Congress this
November, of either party; if the President
asks to appear in your district, will you
accept – and will you answer that in October,
on the record, rather than in November,
after the votes are counted?
THE BALLOT QUESTION
BEYOND THE POCKETBOOK. Every campaign asks whether you are better off than you were
four years ago. Scripture asks the harder question, and it asks it of the voter, not the candidate:
what does your spending say about you? “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be
also.” (Matthew 6:21)
WALK, DO NOT TALK. Anyone can hold up a Bible for a camera. The test is not the prop; it is the
record. “He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but
to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” (Micah 6:8). Moses was given
the hiring standard, and it has not been repealed: “able men, such as fear God, men of truth,
hating covetousness.” (Exodus 18:21)
NO MORE FOREIGN WARS. We keep sending other people’s children to other people’s countries
for reasons that never survive the decade, lately without the vote the Constitution requires.
“Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.” (Matthew 5:9). And
“they shall beat their swords into plowshares.” (Isaiah 2:4)
THE STRANGER AT THE DOOR. Nearly every American family arrived here from somewhere
else, most of them poor and most of them unwelcome the week they landed. The law can be
enforced without cruelty. “But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born
among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Leviticus
19:34)
PROVIDE FOR THE SICK. A country that can replace a missile in a year can train a doctor in
seven. We are not short of money; we are short of priority. “I was sick, and ye visited me.” (Matthew
25:36)
PROVIDE FOR THE POOR. The poor do not retain lobbyists, which is precisely why the duty
falls to everyone else. “Open thy mouth for the dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed
to destruction. Open thy mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy.”
(Proverbs 31:8-9)
A prop is held up. A job description is carried out.
THE EARTH IS NOT THEIRS TO SELL. The oil, the coal, the water, and the land were created
by no officeholder, yet they are leased, permitted, and given away by men who will be gone when
the bill arrives. “The earth is the LORD’s, and the fulness thereof.” (Psalm 24:1). “Woe unto them
that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place.” (Isaiah 5:8)
PROTECT THE CHILDREN. This one admits no compromise, no sealed file, and no political
by Brent Lambi | Sep 6, 2026 | Uncategorized
Narco-State That
Became a Bank Account
We Were Promised a Drug War. We Got an Offshore Account.
Sixty-seven boats destroyed. Thirteen billion dollars collected.
And the one account nobody in this country is allowed to audit.
IMAGINATION LIBRARY 332 million+ books, five countries
FOUNDED 1995, for a father who could not read
VACCINE RESEARCH $1 million
SMOKIES FIRES, 2016 $1,000 a month, per displaced family
HURRICANE HELENE $1M personal, $1M from her companies
DOLLYWOOD Full college tuition for employees
THE LEDGER, ITEM BY ITEM
WE WENT FOR THE CARTELS. WE CAME HOME WITH THE OIL.
THE DRUGS ARE STILL MOVING. THE MONEY IS STILL MISSING.
AN AMERICAN SEIZURE BELONGS IN AN AMERICAN BANK.
WHERE IS THE MONEY? WHERE ARE THE DRUGS?
ANSWER THE PEOPLE WHO PAID FOR IT.
WHAT WE WERE TOLD. Venezuela was a
narco-state and its president a cartel boss. On
that premise, American forces struck Caracas
on January 3 and flew Nicolás Maduro to New
York. Congress never voted on it. When five
Republicans joined Democrats to force the
question, the Vice President broke the tie to
kill it.
WHAT WAS PROVEN TO THE PUBLIC.
Nothing yet. Maduro pleaded not guilty, and
the case is pending. The premise was thin before
the first shot. DEA data put the Caribbean
corridor at roughly 8 percent of seaborne cocaine
leaving South America, most of it bound
for Europe. Venezuela appears in no DEA National
Drug Threat Assessment as a fentanyl
source or transit country. The SOUTHCOM
commander told lawmakers in March that
boat strikes are not the answer. Sixty-seven
vessels were destroyed, 221 people were
killed, and the traffickers rerouted.
WHAT WE TOOK. Ten oil tankers were boarded
or seized. One hundred fifty million barrels
were sold by April. More than $13 billion was
collected by late July.
WHERE IT WENT. Not the U.S. Treasury, at
least not at first. The opening $500 million
landed in a Qatari bank, described by an official
as neutral ground beyond any risk of seizure.
But Executive Order 14373 had already
blocked the creditors under an emergency the
President declared himself. So the offshore account
was not shielding the money from them.
It was shielding it from American courts.
About $3 billion is accounted for. Ten billion is
not. Two of the trading houses that were hired
had previously been prosecuted for bribery.
In February, the Treasury Secretary promised
Congress the statutory authority. By March 11,
it still had not come.
We took the oil by force and banked it where
no American judge can reach it.
THE PARDON THAT DOES NOT FIT. On
December 1, 2025, one month before the drug
war began, this President pardoned Juan Orlando
Hernández, former president of Honduras,
convicted of moving more than 400
tons of cocaine and serving 45 years. Same
crime. Same hemisphere. Opposite outcome.
WHAT IT COST. Brown University’s Costs of
War project put Southern Spear and Absolute
Resolve at a minimum of $4.7 billion through
March 31, $3.8 billion of it naval, and called
that figure conservative. The Pentagon refuses
to give Congress a number at all.
WHAT ACTUALLY CHANGED. Maduro’s
own vice president governs, unelected. No
free elections have been announced. Inflation
was 475 percent last year. Roughly 90
percent of the country is in poverty. Three
months’ minimum wage does not buy one
dollar. June earthquakes killed more than
5,000, and $386 million in aid moved while
$13 billion sat in a bank.
AND IT WAS NEVER ARGENTINA. Argentina
is Level 1. Go tomorrow. The country
we liberated is Level 3, with seven states still
marked Do Not Travel and visas issued from
Bogotá.
THE EDITOR’S OPINION. No court has
found corruption here, and I allege none. But
I have seen this shape before, and the questions
below are not rhetorical. They are unanswered.
THREE QUESTIONS NOBODY WILL ANSWER.
Where are the drugs? Sixty-seven
boats were destroyed. Two hundred twenty-
one people are dead. The routes moved; the
cocaine did not stop. No public evidence has
yet tied a single shipment to the man we took.
Where is the money? Thirteen billion was collected.
Three billion is explained. Ten billion is
behind a seal no American judge is permitted
to break.
And why a foreign bank? That question answers
the other two. A seizure made by American
forces, paid for by American taxpayers,
belongs in the American Treasury, on an
American ledger, in front of an American
court. In 1989, we invaded Panama, took a dictator
on drug charges, and found the money
in Panamanian banks, but those assets went
through courts. There is exactly one reason to
send this money to Qatar instead: so that nobody
here can look at it. The cartels used foreign
banks for the same reason. They simply
never called it foreign policy.
THE HONEST PART. Maduro was a tyrant
who stole an election, and some of this money
has paid Venezuelan salaries under a continuing
audit. Fine. Then publish the authority,
publish the ledger, and let a judge look.
A TRIBUTE
The Woman Who Never
Asked Your Party
She Just Mailed the Book.
Sixty years in public life, a coalition wider than either party’s,
and not one loyalty oath. Washington should study the tape.
The Failed Trump/MAGA Movement
The Voters Got Promises. The Insiders Got Everything.
Nineteen months in, one side of this bargain has been paid in full,
and it was not the side that voted.
When I filed this case, I expected a straightforward
process involving discovery and documents.
If the record supported it, I also expected
the true wrongdoer to be named as a third
party defendant.
That is not what has happened. It is my
opinion that discovery in this matter is being
shaped by people whose names do not appear
in the case caption. I cannot prove that today,
and I will not tell readers otherwise. I can only
tell you what I believe and why I am acting on it.
I am therefore pausing my lawsuit.
I want to be plain about Berkshire Hathaway.
My view is that the company and its agents may
themselves have been used by someone else
who gave them a version of events and left
them to act on it.
If I am right, Berkshire is not the author of
this defamation but a vehicle for it. To the extent
that my filings suggested otherwise, my
apology is sincere.
My hope is that Berkshire Hathaway or its
agents will come forward or tell others what I
suspect they may already know: the origin of
this matter is federal.
I remain of the view that my dispute with
the federal government is ongoing and that the
government’s objective is to silence and discredit
me.
Free speech has cost me a great deal. In this
political climate, it is plainly not free.
Brent Lambi: The opinions expressed above
are solely those of the author.
A Pause and an Apology
An update on the Berkshire Hathaway defamation matter
and why I am putting my own case on hold for now.
“Berkshire is not the author of this defamation but a vehicle for it.”
Sources: Forbes “World’s Billionaires” (Mar. 2026); USDA ERS Food Price Outlook (Aug. 2026); NBC News grocery tracker
(Aug. 19, 2026); Purdue Consumer Food Insights; Economist/YouGov (Aug. 7–10, 2026); Reuters (Oct. 23, 2025); Public
Citizen; Senate letters of Oct. 22, 2025; PBS NewsHour (Apr. 2026).
Sources: Executive Order 14373; Treasury and OFAC general licenses; DEA National Drug Threat
Assessment; Costs of War Project, Brown University; Semafor; CNN; Reuters; House Financial Services
Committee correspondence; U.S. Department of State.
SHE STARTED WITH A DEBT SHE COULD
NOT REPAY. Dolly Rebecca Parton was born
January 19, 1946, in Sevier County, Tennessee,
one of twelve children in a mountain
cabin. Her father could not read. In 1995, she
founded the Imagination Library in his honor,
mailing free books to children from birth until
kindergarten. When she died in Nashville
on August 25 at eighty, the program had gifted
more than 332 million books to over three
million children across five countries. The
book is addressed to the child, not the parent.
Her family asked that flowers be sent as donations
to it instead.
THE LEDGER NOBODY MADE HER PUBLISH.
A million dollars that helped fund
COVID vaccine research. A thousand dollars
a month to families burned out of the Smokies
in 2016. A million of her own after Hurricane
Helene, with a million more from her businesses.
Full college tuition for Dollywood employees.
The Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy
in 2022. None of it appropriated. None of it
borrowed. She spent her own money, then
went back to work.
SHE DECLINED THE HONORS SHE HAD
EARNED. Twice she turned down the Presidential
Medal of Freedom. In 2021, she asked
the Tennessee legislature to hold off on a statue
of her at the Capitol, not while there was
work left to do. Read that beside a renamed
plaza and a fresh bronze inscription, and note
carefully who paid for which.
SHE WAS NOBODY’S FOOL. She retained
her publishing rights while the industry was
taking everyone else’s, and walked away from
an Elvis recording rather than surrender half
of “I Will Always Love You.” Generosity was
never naivety. It never is.
AND SHE NEVER ASKED YOUR PARTY.
She spent half a century in the brightest light
in America, and no one could reliably say how
she voted. She kept it that way on purpose.
The result was that a coal miner and a college
professor could sing the same chorus and
both mean it. She did not build that audience
by agreeing with everyone. She built it by refusing
to sort them.
Three hundred thirty-two million books, and
not one of them billed to the taxpayer.
Three hundred thirty-two
million books, and not one of
them billed to the taxpayer.
That is the whole lesson, and it is not complicated.
SHE NEVER ASKED WHICH WAY YOU VOTED.
SHE ONLY ASKED WHETHER YOUR CHILD COULD READ.
SET THE BAR WHERE SHE LEFT IT.
NO PARTY OWNS THIS ONE.
LEAD LIKE DOLLY.
Sources: family statement and obituary notices, Aug. 25, 2026; Dolly Parton’s Imagination
Library; Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy; contemporaneous news accounts.
WHAT THEY RAN ON. Prices down starting
on day one. The war ended in twenty-four
hours. The files released. The swamp drained.
Each of those promises was made plainly,
from a stage, to people who believed it enough
to stand in line in the cold.
WHAT WAS DELIVERED. Food cost 3.0 percent
more this July than a year earlier. Ground
beef is up 18 percent since January 2025, and
orange juice is up 20 percent. Health premiums
rose by roughly a quarter when the
enhanced credits lapsed. Food insecurity
reached 13.3 percent overall and 46 percent
among SNAP households. Consumer optimism
hit an all-time low this month. The debt
is past $39.9 trillion. The Epstein files were
ordered released by a 427-to-1 vote, and the
measure was signed into law in November,
but they still need a judge to pry them loose.
The Iran war is still running. Approval this
month: 33 percent.
AND WHAT THE INSIDERS GOT. Forbes put
the president’s fortune at $6.5 billion in March,
up $1.4 billion in a year, roughly $1.8 billion of
it from cryptocurrency, including about $550
million from selling the family venture’s own
tokens. On the administration’s first full day,
the SEC opened a crypto task force; cases
against that venture’s investors and partners
were dropped or settled. An Emirati state fund
moved $2 billion into Binance using the family
stablecoin. The envoy who co-founded the
venture still held his stake ten months in. In
October, the president pardoned Binance’s
founder, whose company had pleaded guilty
and paid $4.3 billion.
A movement is judged by who got paid. This
one paid its founders and billed its believers.
THE HONEST PART. Egg prices are down 31
percent. Presidents are exempt from the conflict-
of-interest statute; none of this has been
charged as a crime, and the Trump Organization
says it complies with every applicable ethics
law. Grocery inflation is off its 2022 peak.
Some of these promises were fantasies the
day they were made: no president could have
ended that war in a day. And no party’s donor
ledger is clean.
AND STILL. None of that changes the arithmetic.
Two ledgers were kept over these nineteen
months. One of them was settled in full.
Check which one has your name on it.
THE MOVEMENT DID NOT FAIL ITS INSIDERS.
IT ONLY FAILED THE PEOPLE WHO BELIEVED IT.
AN EMPTY PROMISE IS STILL AN INVOICE — AND IT IS MADE OUT TO YOU.
“HOLD YOUR NOSE AND VOTE DEMOCRAT — OR JUST DON’T VOTE IN NOVEMBER.”
DON’T VOTE REPUBLICAN!
LET’S MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!
by Brent Lambi | Sep 2, 2026 | Political
A WARNING FROM THE ROAD: IOWA AND NEBRASKA
Storm Clouds on the Horizon
And the Wind Is Already Up
A Carroll banker with sixty-six years behind a desk says he has read this sky before.
So have I. It looked like this in 1979, and the man in the White House was Jimmy Carter.
If you or someone you know is struggling, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is available around the clock, and Iowa State
University Extension operates the Iowa Concern Hotline for farm families.
Sources: U.S. Treasury; Learning Resources v. Trump (Feb. 20, 2026); USDA; American Farm Bureau Federation; Federal
Reserve Banks of Chicago and Kansas City; Congressional Research Service; NCBA; Iowa Farm Bureau; UPI and Iowa PBS
archives; Human Rights Watch; company filings.
CARTER, 1980 An embargo that cost us the market
THIS TIME $20 billion Treasury swap to Argentina
AUTHORIZED BY No vote in Congress required
TIMED FOR The longest U. S. shutdown, and Milei’s election
ARGENTINA Beef quota quadrupled in February
BRAZIL 40 tariff points off, record 2026 imports
WHAT CARTER NEVER DID
CARTER COST US THE MARKET.
TRUMP WIRED MONEY TO THE MEN WHO TOOK IT.
IN MY OPINION, THAT IS NOT A MISTAKE. IT IS A DIRECTION.
NO PARTY OWNS THIS ONE
DEMAND REAL SOLUTIONS BEFORE THE SPRING NOTE!
THE MAN WHO READS THE SKY. In Carroll
I sat with a retired banker, a sixty-six-year veteran
of the business and a director of an Iowa
regional bank. He says another 1980s farm crisis
is coming and could be worse. His reasons:
a debt that crossed $40.05 trillion on August
18, trade policy that cost farmers their buyers,
and what happens when money gets expensive
again. At fifteen or eighteen percent, he said, it
will be twice as bad as 1981 because in 1981 we
had no trade war on top of it. He watched millionaire
farmers go broke in three years, men
he had banked for thirty.
WHAT THE LAST STORM TOOK. Researchers
counted 913 male farmer suicides across
five Upper Midwest states that decade. On December
9, 1985, Lone Tree farmer Dale Burr,
half a million in debt, killed his wife, Hills Bank
president John Hughes, and a neighbor, then
himself. Iowa banks hired guards.
IN MY OPINION, THIS IS CARTER’S PLAYBOOK.
Carter used food as a weapon. In January
1980 he embargoed grain to the Soviets,
trusting competitors not to take the sales. Argentina
refused, raising export earnings roughly
thirty percent selling to Moscow. Brazil, Canada
and Australia followed. The Soviets ate.
Iowa did not. America was branded an unreliable
supplier and never won that share back.
Then Carter bought the grain himself: $2.25
billion of it. Now watch it again. We taxed our
way out of the Chinese soybean market. Brazil
and Argentina took it. Our share of world soybean
trade is a record-low 23 percent. Then we
wrote a $12 billion check, drawn not on tariff
revenue but the Commodity Credit Corporation.
Borrowed money.
THE TARIFF THE COURT SAID HE NEVER
HAD. Read this twice. On February 20, the Supreme
Court ruled 6-3, with Roberts writing,
that the president has no power to impose
tariffs under the emergency-powers act. The
Court did not say they were unwise. It said they
were never lawful from day one. Roughly $175
billion may be owed back to importers. Iowa
farmers spent a year eating Chinese retaliation
for a policy the Court says was never authorized.
A day later the Trump administration
announced it would reimpose a fifteen percent
tariff globally under another statute. The share
is gone. The retaliation was real. Only the authority
was imaginary.
CARTER LOST US THE MARKET. THIS
ONE PAID THE MAN WHO TOOK IT. Here
is where my opinion hardens, and it is the
heart of this editorial. Carter was wrong, and
Iowa paid for it. But Carter never wrote Argentina
a check for taking our business. On October
9, 2025, during the longest government
shutdown in American history, the Treasury
Secretary announced a $20 billion swap line
with Argentina’s central bank and directly
purchased Argentine pesos. The money came
from the Exchange Stabilization Fund, which
needs no vote in Congress. No economic conditions
were attached. The timing served President
Milei’s October elections. And at that very
hour, Argentine farmers were selling China
the soybeans Iowa could not. Senator Grassley
said it plainly at the time: our farmers were
upset about Argentina selling soybeans to China
right after the bailout, with zero U.S. sales.
Then in February we quadrupled Argentina’s
beef quota. On August 21 we floated 300,000
metric tons more. Cattle broke that morning.
Carter shut a door and our competitors walked
through it. Trump opened the Treasury and
wired them the fare.
AND THE GATE FOR BRAZIL. In July 2025
the Trump administration put a 50 percent
tariff on Brazilian beef. By November it had removed
40 of those percentage points. Brazilian
packers shipped $795 million of beef into this
country in the first quarter of 2026 alone. Total
U.S. beef imports hit a record $13.75 billion in
2025 while our own beef exports fell about 11
percent to $9.3 billion. Imports are on pace for
nearly 6 billion pounds this year, which would
be a record. And on August 21 the Trump administration
announced a 90-day cut to beef
tariffs, in the middle of that record. The cattlemen’s
association called it flooding the market
with “government-subsidized, below-market
beef.” Not my words. Theirs.
AND NOW THE PACKINGHOUSES. I
watched plants go dark in Storm Lake, Fort
Dodge and Cedar Falls. Rath closed in Waterloo
in 1985. But those jobs went to American
firms cutting American wages: IBP’s boxed
beef, rural low-wage plants, packing pay below
the average U.S. manufacturing wage by
1983. Ugly, and ours. Now the ledger. Tyson
shut its Lexington, Nebraska, plant in January,
eliminating 2,000 jobs. On August 13, Tyson
announced the immediate closure of its Joslin,
Illinois, plant, affecting 2,500 workers, plus its
Eagle Mountain, Utah, facility. Perry, Iowa is
gone. Over 10,000 Tyson jobs since 2023. JBS
is closing a Pennsylvania plant, eliminating
2,000 more jobs. JBS is Brazilian, controlled by
the Batista family of São Paulo. The plants that
closed this month processed American cattle.
What is replacing them does not.
ONE THING REAGAN WOULD NEVER DO.
Reagan ended Carter’s embargo in ninety-four
days. He tore a barrier down. Whatever else he
was, and I have written plainly about what he
was, he never bought a competitor’s currency
with public money, and he never cut his own
ranchers’ tariff protection during a record import
year. That, in my opinion, is the whole distance
between a president who mishandled a
crisis and one who is financing the other side of
it. Carter was wrong. He was not misdirected.
This is misdirected.
WHY THIS ONE COULD BE WORSE. The
banker’s real warning was not about prices. It
was about where the debt is sitting. Farm debt
hits a record $624.7 billion this year, carrying a
record $33 billion in interest. The Kansas City
Fed reports farmers taking larger operating
loans and longer to repay. The Chicago Fed’s
May survey of 104 Midwest ag lenders found
falling cash rents, rising rollovers, tightening
credit and near-breakeven cash flow. An Iowa
bankruptcy attorney describes what I remember
from 1980: farmers moving operating debt
onto the land because the land is the only thing
still holding value. That is the trap. Land is up
three percent while cash flow is negative. The
ground is carrying the losses. It carried them in
1979 too, right until it did not. Then it fell sixty
percent with the notes still attached.
The ground is carrying the losses.
It carried them in 1979 too,
right until it did not.
THE WIND IS ALREADY UP. Corn breaks
even near $5.00; USDA forecasts $4.20. Soybeans,
$12.27 against $10.30. Iowa net farm income
is projected down 53 percent. Nineteen
percent of the state’s midsize and large farms
are financially vulnerable, double 2022. Chapter
12 filings rose 220 percent here.
THE HONEST PART. Tyson and JBS blame
the cattle herd: 86.2 million head, a 75-year low
from drought and disease, not imports. That is
the stated cause, and I will not pretend otherwise.
The Argentine swap was a credit line,
not a grant, and Treasury says the draw was repaid.
In terms of wreckage, 1980 through 1985
was still worse: land off sixty percent, Farm
Credit down $2.7 billion. My argument is not
that the checks have already destroyed us. It is
about direction and about what is being loaded
onto the ground right now.
GET THE MACHINERY IN. Remove the tariffs
and trade barriers. Rebuild the herd before
importing the beef. Stop financing the competition.
E20 now, E30 by 2029. Do it before the
spring note comes due. The note is where this
ends. It always was.
When I filed this case, I expected a straightforward
process involving discovery and documents.
If the record supported it, I also expected
the true wrongdoer to be named as a third
party defendant.
That is not what has happened. It is my
opinion that discovery in this matter is being
shaped by people whose names do not appear
in the case caption. I cannot prove that today,
and I will not tell readers otherwise. I can only
tell you what I believe and why I am acting on it.
I am therefore pausing my lawsuit.
I want to be plain about Berkshire Hathaway.
My view is that the company and its agents may
themselves have been used by someone else
who gave them a version of events and left
them to act on it.
If I am right, Berkshire is not the author of
this defamation but a vehicle for it. To the extent
that my filings suggested otherwise, my
apology is sincere.
My hope is that Berkshire Hathaway or its
agents will come forward or tell others what I
suspect they may already know: the origin of
this matter is federal.
I remain of the view that my dispute with
the federal government is ongoing and that the
government’s objective is to silence and discredit
me.
Free speech has cost me a great deal. In this
political climate, it is plainly not free.
Brent Lambi: The opinions expressed above
are solely those of the author.
A Pause and an Apology
An update on the Berkshire Hathaway defamation matter
and why I am putting my own case on hold for now.
THE BOOK IS NOT A PROP
They Held Up the Book
They Simply Never Opened It.
The acts first, in plain language. Then the verse each one breaks.
The deeds are public record. Scripture is theirs too.
THE PHOTOGRAPH. On June 1, 2020, federal
officers cleared demonstrators from Lafayette
Square. Minutes later the president walked
across it and held a Bible up in front of St.
John’s Church for the cameras. He did not go
in. He did not read from it. He did not pray.
◆ “They love to pray standing in the synagogues
and in the corners of the streets, that
they may be seen of men… They have their
reward” (Matthew 6:5). The reward was the
photograph. That was the transaction.
THE $59.99 BIBLE. In 2024 he put his name
on the “God Bless the USA Bible”: scripture
bound with the Constitution and a song lyric,
sold at $59.99, with a licensing cut to him.
◆ Christ drove the sellers out of the temple:
“make not my Father’s house an house of
merchandise” (John 2:16). Merchandising
the book is not witness. It is inventory.
A Bible held up for a photograph is
not a testimony. It is a costume.
THE MONUMENT. A $600 million ballroom
rises on the people’s ground, about half of it
charged to taxpayers. A federal judge ruled
that only Congress may rename the Kennedy
Center; in August the board voted around him
and renamed the grounds the President Donald
J. Trump Plaza.
◆ “Is not this great Babylon, that I have built…
for the honour of my majesty?” (Daniel 4:30).
Nebuchadnezzar lost his reason in the middle
of that sentence. “Whosoever shall exalt
himself shall be abased” (Matthew 23:12).
THE GIFT AND THE SETTLEMENT. A $400
million jet was accepted from Qatar. A $10 billion
claim against the IRS, filed in his personal
capacity, was settled in May by the attorney
who defended him in his own criminal case
and now runs the Justice Department; the
claim was traded for audit protection on every
earlier return.
◆ “Thy princes are rebellious, and companions
of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth
after rewards” (Isaiah 1:23). And the
ledger verse: “A false balance is abomination
to the LORD” (Proverbs 11:1).
THE PARDONS. Juan Orlando Hernández,
sentenced to 45 years for moving hundreds of
tons of cocaine, was pardoned and released.
Roughly a hundred drug clemencies followed.
Meanwhile, 70.6 percent of those held in ICE
detention had no conviction.
◆ “He that justifieth the wicked, and he that
condemneth the just, even they both are
abomination to the LORD” (Proverbs 17:15).
Both halves, in one line. Mercy for the trafficker.
A cell for the roofer.
THE SICK AND THE CHILDREN. Premium
credits lapsed on December 31, 2025, and
premiums rose about 26 percent. Measles returned
to its worst year since 1991 as kindergarten
vaccination rates fell to 92.5 percent.
A law passed 427–1 ordered the Epstein files
released; the survivors are still waiting.
◆ “I was sick, and ye visited me not” (Matthew
25:43). Of the children: “it were better for him
that a millstone were hanged about his neck”
by Brent Lambi | Aug 30, 2026 | Political
Your Tax Dollars,
Their Harvest
The Tariff Is Ours. The Bailout Is Theirs.
The American farmer never asked for protection. He asked
for a market, and Washington sold it to his competitor.
A FARMER DOES NOT WANT A CHECK. HE WANTS A BUYER.
STOP FINANCING THE COMPETITION.
NO PARTY OWNS THIS ONE
SELL IT — DON’T SUBSIDIZE IT!
Sources: U.S. Treasury; White House Proclamation of Feb. 6, 2026; U.S. Customs and Border Protection quota bulletins;
USDA; American Soybean Association; Congressional Research Service; Reuters; CNN; NBC News; Associated Press.
SWAP LINE $20 billion to Argentina’s central bank, Oct. 2025
CHINA’S CUT More than half of U.S. soybean exports; $12.6B in 2024
BEEF QUOTA 20,000 to as much as 100,000 metric tons in 2026
FARM INPUTS ~$33 billion imported yearly – taxed at the gate
THE “HELP” $12 billion in bridge payments, Dec. 2025
THE LEDGER, BY THE BUSHEL
WHAT “POLITICAL” NOW MEANS. Juan
Orlando Hernández, former president of Honduras,
was convicted of conspiring to move
at least 400 tons of cocaine into this country
and sentenced to 45 years by Judge Kevin
Castel, an appointee of George W. Bush. On
December 1, 2025, he walked out of a federal
penitentiary with a full pardon. The explanation
offered was that he had been “persecuted
very unfairly” and was the victim of what the
President called a Biden administration setup.
No evidence was produced. Not one juror answered.
Just the word “political,” thrown over a
verdict like a tarp.
WHO ACTUALLY DID THE WORK. In 2025,
the Coast Guard seized more than 511,000
pounds of cocaine, over three times the service’s
annual average. Operation Pacific Viper
alone has taken more than 215,000 pounds and
apprehended 160 suspected traffickers. Eighty
percent of interdictions of U.S.-bound drugs
happen at sea: small boats, black water, boarding
ladders. DEA agents and county deputies
do the same work on land: years of wiretaps,
controlled buys and grand jury testimony, given
under their own names, in the same counties
where the people they charge live. Nobody
hands them a signature at the end of it.
NOW DO THE ARITHMETIC. Four hundred
tons is 800,000 pounds. One signature
undid more than the Coast Guard’s best
year on record.
They boarded the boat. He signed the paper.
Only one of them was risking anything.
THE COMPANY HE KEEPS. Hernández was
not alone. On day one, it was Ross Ulbricht,
founder of the largest online drug market of its
time, serving two life sentences. In May 2025, it
was Larry Hoover. The Washington Post counts
clemency for roughly 100 people accused of
drug-related crimes.
AND THE PRESS THAT MOVED ON. It was
reported once. The Washington Post ran the
clemency tally. The wires carried the release.
Two House members filed a resolution condemning
it. Then the cameras went back to
THE PARDON LEDGER
Four Hundred Tons Is
Not a Political Opinion
And a Cutter Crew Is Not a Talking Point.
A federal jury convicted him. A judge appointed by a Republican president
sentenced him. The White House calls it persecution.
Sources: U.S. Coast Guard and DHS interdiction releases (2025–2026); The Washington Post clemency analysis; AP, NPR and
CBS reporting on the December 1, 2025 release; U.S. v. Hernández, S.D.N.Y.
Every package of imported, foreign-processed
meat on an American shelf is a shift that
does not get run here. Tyson shut its Lexington,
Nebraska, plant in January, eliminating
3,200 jobs. This month, it announced the closure
of its Joslin, Illinois, complex, eliminating
roughly 2,500 more jobs, plus the closure of its
Eagle Mountain, Utah, plant. It is also seeking
a buyer for its Pasco, Washington, facility. Imports
have hit a record 17 percent of American
beef supply, and Washington suspended the
tariff-rate quotas in May. Consolidation pencils
out for shareholders. The bill lands on the
farmer. Every packer that disappears is one
less bidder at the gate, and kill capacity, once
gone, does not come back.
None of this was a market accident. Washington
suspended the quotas, waved the imports
through, and called it competition. Our
farmers lose the buyer. Our towns lose the
payroll. Our floors go quiet while the trimmings
come off a boat. That is not policy. That
is gross incompetence, and the farmer pays
for it last and longest.
One Less Bidder at the Gate
The Packing Jobs Go First. The Farmer’s Price Goes Next.
Every pound processed overseas means one less shift run
here and one less buyer for the farmer.
LEXINGTON, NEB. Closed Jan. 20, 2026 – about 3,200 jobs
JOSLIN, ILL. Closed Aug. 14, 2026 – about 2,500 jobs
EAGLE MOUNTAIN, UTAH Case-ready plant closing – 723 jobs
THE IMPORT SIDE 17.3% of U.S. beef supply, an all-time high;
tariff rate quotas suspended May 11, 2026
THE RECORD, PLANT BY PLANT
Source: Tyson Foods statements, Nov. 21, 2025 and Aug. 13, 2026; UNL Center for Agricultural Profitability;
WARN notice, Joslin complex; USDA WASDE import share.
A FARMER OUR FARMERS LOSE THE BUYER. OUR INDUSTRIES
LOSE THE FLOOR. OUR NEIGHBORS LOSE THE JOB.
GROSS INCOMPETENCE IN WASHINGTON WROTE THIS.
AMERICAN CATTLE. AMERICAN PLANTS. AMERICAN JOBS.
NO PARTY OWNS THIS ONE. DEMAND BETTER FROM BOTH!
THE MAN WHO NEVER ASKED FOR A
SUBSIDY. The American farmer was the original
small businessman. He bought his inputs
at market, sold his crop at market, absorbed
his own losses without a lawyer, and asked
Washington for one thing: an open door and
an honest price. He was the freest trader this
country ever produced. He is now the only
man in America being taxed on both ends of
his own barn.
WHAT TWENTY BILLION BOUGHT. In October
2025 the Treasury opened a $20 billion
swap line to Argentina’s central bank and began
buying pesos outright, the largest direct
U.S. rescue of a foreign government since Mexico
in 1995, with talk of doubling it to $40 billion
through private funding. Days later Buenos Aires
suspended its grain export taxes, and China
bought Argentine soybeans at a price we could
not match. China had already halted American
purchases in May; a market worth $12.6 billion
in 2024 went to zero. Republican Sen. Chuck
Grassley asked the obvious question in public.
He never got an answer.
AND THEN THEY SENT THE BEEF. On February
6 the President quadrupled Argentina’s
tariff-rate quota: 80,000 additional metric tons
of lean trimmings on top of the existing 20,000.
Senator Deb Fischer objected. The trimmings
came anyway.
“We taxed his fertilizer, closed his market, then financed the man who took it.”
THE BILL HE CANNOT PASS ALONG.
Meanwhile the tariff lands on the one man in
the chain who cannot hand it to anyone else.
Roughly $33 billion in imported inputs a year,
including fertilizer, chemicals and machinery
parts, is taxed at the gate. Three straight years
of losses. Chapter 12 filings up 46 percent.
Then $12 billion in bridge payments: Washington
handing you your own money back
and calling it generosity.
THE HONEST PART. A swap is not a grant,
and Treasury insists no taxpayer loss is anticipated.
The beef quota answers a cattle herd at
a record low and ground beef at $6.69 a pound.
The Argentine agreement opens more than
two hundred categories to American goods.
Fine. Now explain all of it to a man in Idaho
paying a tariffed price for a combine part while
his buyer loads Argentine soybeans.
the boat strikes, and the pardon shrank into a
footnote inside coverage of the very campaign it
contradicts. The question worth putting to this
administration on camera, and putting again
the next day, is a simple one: how does that
ledger get explained to the crews still being sent
out? A government that kills suspected smugglers
without trial while pardoning a convicted
kingpin is not a news cycle. It is a standing contradiction,
and it deserves a standing question
at every briefing.
THE HONEST PART. The pardon power is
absolute, and both parties have used it on drug
cases. Hernández and his lawyers maintain the
case rested on the word of convicted traffickers.
Clemency is not the offense here. Calling a jury’s
verdict political is. The Movement Ate Its Own
It Called That Loyalty
Three women asked one question about the Epstein files. Two are gone.
And the file they asked about now sits with the president’s own lawyer.
AND WHO HOLDS THE FILE NOW. On August
10, Todd Blanche, Trump’s own criminal
defense attorney, was sworn in as Attorney
General by Emil Bove, another of his former
lawyers. Only two Republicans voted no. Epstein
survivors testified against him. New Mexico
is suing his department for stonewalling a
state investigation. He has declined to promise
that the president will have no voice in individual
prosecutions.
THE HONEST PART. Greene, Mace, and
Massie crossed Trump on more than Epstein,
and primary voters removing a member is democracy,
not conspiracy. Bondi’s and Noem’s
failures were their own. But no conspiracy is required
here. Only a rule: ask, and you are gone.
THE THREE WHO ASKED. In November 2025, four House Republicans signed the discharge
petition forcing a vote on the Epstein files. Three were women: Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren
Boebert, and Nancy Mace, who called her signature deeply personal as a survivor of sexual
and domestic violence. Trump phoned Boebert before dawn and summoned her to the White
House. He played phone tag with Mace. Neither folded.
AND WHAT IT COST THEM. Trump branded Greene a traitor. She resigned on January 5, 2026.
Mace lost her primary for governor of South Carolina in June. Thomas Massie, the fourth signer,
lost his primary as well. Boebert survived chiefly because the president moved to punish her
after the filing deadline had passed.
THE WOMEN WHO WERE USED. Pam Bondi handed Epstein binders to influencers, issued the
memo declaring the case closed, and absorbed a year of fury that belonged upstairs. She was fired
on April 2, 2026. Kristi Noem testified that Trump personally approved the $220 million campaign
promoting her own leadership. She, too, was fired. They were not partners. They were padding.
GREENE Called a traitor; resigned
Jan. 5, 2026
MACE Lost the S.C. governor’s
primary, June 2026
MASSIE Lost his primary as well
BOEBERT Survived – the challenge
came too late to file
THE FILES Law passed 421 – 1; still in
court in 2026
THE FOUR WHO SIGNED
“Loyalty was not a bond.
It was a warranty period.”
THEY DID NOT LOSE THEIR LEADERS.
THEY WERE SHOWN THE DOOR FOR ASKING A QUESTION.
THE FILE BELONGS TO THE PUBLIC — NOT TO HIS ATTORNEY.
THEY ASKED ONE QUESTION
VOTE INDEPENDENT IN NOVEMBER!
Sources: AP, Reuters, NBC News, CNN, Axios, The Hill, NPR, PBS NewsHour, 19th News, Ms. Magazine (Nov. 2025 to Aug. 2026). When I filed this case, I expected a straightforward
process involving discovery and documents.
If the record supported it, I also expected
the true wrongdoer to be named as a third
party defendant.
That is not what has happened. It is my opinion
that discovery in this matter is being shaped
by people whose names do not appear in the
case caption. I cannot prove that today, and I
will not tell readers otherwise. I can only tell
you what I believe and why I am acting on it.
I am therefore pausing my lawsuit.
I want to be plain about Berkshire Hathaway.
My view is that the company and its agents
may themselves have been used by someone
else who gave them a version of events and left
them to act on it.
If I am right, Berkshire is not the author of
this defamation but a vehicle for it. To the extent
that my filings suggested otherwise, my
A Pause and an Apology
An update on the Berkshire Hathaway defamation matter
and why I am putting my own case on hold for now.
apology is sincere.
My hope is that Berkshire Hathaway or its
agents will come forward or tell others what I
suspect they may already know: the origin of
this matter is federal.
I remain of the view that my dispute with
the federal government is ongoing and that the
government’s objective is to silence and discredit
me.
Free speech has cost me a great deal. In this
political climate, it is plainly not free.
Brent Lambi: The opinions expressed
by Brent Lambi | Aug 26, 2026 | Political
REPORTING LLC | WWW.HONEST-POLITICS.COM
Veritas Pro Populo
HONEST POLITICS
I WANTED TO BELIEVE IT. In 1980 I cast my
ballot for John Anderson, an independent, because
a government too large to audit is a government
too large to trust. So when a movement
arrived promising to shrink it, end the
wars, balance the books and enforce the law,
I gave it a hearing. Eleven years on, I will say
plainly what I have concluded: it is the biggest
lie I have ever witnessed.
LAW AND ORDER, EXCEPT AT THE TOP. In
2024, Chairman Comer and Senator Grassley
wrote to the FBI accusing it of quietly revising
crime figures and calling the numbers unreliable.
Today the same party quotes the same
system as proof of its own success. I will concede
the decline is real: homicides fell 18 percent
in the first half of this year, and independent
analysts say so, not just the government.
But a party that trusts the measuring stick only
when it flatters its case has not adopted a standard.
It has adopted a scoreboard.
AND THEN THE PARDONS. Juan Orlando
Hernández moved more than four hundred
tons of cocaine and drew forty-five years.
He served roughly eighteen months and
walked out on a signature. Ross Ulbricht.
Larry Hoover. Some 100 drug-related clemencies.
Roughly 1,500 January 6 defendants,
including men convicted of assaulting police
officers. Ninety-six percent of second-term
grants were issued outside Justice Department
review. That is not law and order. That
is a favor window.
The kingpin got a signature.
The trafficker got a transfer.
The girls got a sealed file.
NO FOREIGN WARS. We fought a war with
Iran that Congress never voted on. The Abraham
Lincoln’s crew has been at sea more than
260 days with no date home. Iran sells its oil
at a better price today than before we started.
A BALANCED BUDGET. $39.8 trillion. About
$286,000 per household. Interest now costs
more than defense. Every point of it lands on
your mortgage, your car note and your child’s
tuition, all parts of the finances you were
promised you would control.
AND THE CHILDREN. The Epstein Files
Transparency Act passed the House 427–1
and was signed in November 2025. Nine
months later the file is still shut. But Ghislaine
Maxwell, days after a private meeting
with the Deputy Attorney General, was
moved to a minimum-security camp that
Bureau of Prisons policy says a sex offender
cannot be assigned to at all. No survivor ever
got that consideration.
I DID NOT LEAVE A MOVEMENT.
THE MOVEMENT LEFT THE OATH.
Source note: Clemency, crime and appropriation figures
are drawn from public records and cited reporting.
The Biggest Lie I Have
Ever Witnessed
I voted for John Anderson in 1980 because I believed
big government was dangerous. I still believe it.
That is exactly why I cannot vote for this one.
WITHOUT READER SUPPORT
THIS COLUMN DISAPPEARS.
Brent Lambi
THE COMMANDER AND THE CREW
Let Them Flush
Porcelain Toilets
Thirty-three gold bathrooms in Palm Beach.
On the Abraham Lincoln, the toilets do not work.
THIRTY-THREE. That is the number of bathrooms at Mar-a-Lago finished with gold-plated
fixtures and marble. The Trump Tower triplex was remodeled in gold from floor to ceiling.
The Oval Office got gold molding from his own gilder. The Lincoln Bedroom bathroom, photographed
and posted while the government was shut down, is now finished in polished statuary
marble with gold fixtures.
AND ON THE LINCOLN, THEY DO NOT WORK. The USS Abraham Lincoln left San Diego in November
and was due home in May. It has been at sea for more than 260 days, with no port call in
more than 200 days, a record. Families have given CNN photographs of overflowing toilets in sewage-
saturated washrooms. Sailors report moldy showers, rationed meals, no milk for three months,
and running out of soap. A sailor’s video tour of the heads circulated around the country last week.
Senator Blumenthal’s letter to the Pentagon cites plumbing failures and water contamination. Central
Command’s own tally for that crew: 10,000 flights and 1.5 million pounds of ordnance.
THE PORCELAIN LEDGER
AND HE SAYS THEY SHOULD STAY LONGER. Asked whether the Lincoln had been out too
long, the president said “not nearly long enough.” Asked whether families were worried, he said
they were not. Congressman Mike Levin responded that the least this country owes these sailors
is hot water, a working toilet, and a real meal. The defense secretary called the families’ warnings
fake news. Senator Mark Kelly, who flew 39 combat missions, wants an investigation.
HE NEVER SERVED A DAY. Five deferments kept him out of Vietnam: four for school, followed
by a 1968 diagnosis of bone spurs at age 22. The podiatrist’s daughters told The New York Times
that the diagnosis was a favor to Fred Trump, their father’s landlord. Trump later said he could
not recall the doctor’s name. A biographer asked to see the spurs and saw nothing. He has never
once had to use a military head.
Sources: TIME, CNN, NPR, Navy Times, GAO, The New York Times.
MAR-A-LAGO 33 gold-plated bathrooms
TRUMP TOWER Triplex remodeled in gold
LINCOLN BEDROOM Marble and gold fixtures
BEDMINSTER Rented restrooms, up to $333,801
USS A. LINCOLN Overflowing; 260+ days at sea
When You Own Both
Sides, You Never Lose
Two Examples Anybody Can Follow. Then Washington.
A prosecutor who works for you. An insurance company you own. Now count the odds.
EXAMPLE ONE: You are accused of business fraud. Your own attorney is also the prosecutor
who decides whether to charge you. What are the odds you get charged? Zero. Not low. Zero.
The evidence is irrelevant. The only man who can act on it works for you.
EXAMPLE TWO: You file an injury claim. Your attorney is an ambulance chaser, and you also
own the insurance company he is billing. Odds of a big payout? Certain. The facts are irrelevant
again. Your claim is reviewed by your own side.
Hold both pictures at once. They are two wings of one building: one wing charges people, the
other pays them.
THE MAN IN BOTH WINGS: Todd Blanche was Trump’s personal criminal defense attorney.
He is now Attorney General of the United States. On Sunday, when asked whether he would
act independently of the White House, he said he would not promise that. He also said that the
President should have a say in who gets prosecuted.
WING ONE: THE FILE: Congress ordered the Epstein files released. The House voted 427 to
1. The Senate agreed without a single objection. It was signed into law in November 2025 with
a thirty-day deadline. Nine months later, millions of pages are still withheld. Blanche ran that
release. He published personal details of some victims and redacted heavily elsewhere, and he
withheld material about the President.
Understand the sequence. In May 2025, Blanche and Bondi told Trump his name appears in
the Epstein files. That summer, FBI personnel were instructed to flag any mention of him in the
case records. This month, a federal judge had to rule that an act of Congress outranks Ghislaine
Maxwell’s claim to privacy. The law was never the obstacle. The department was.
AND THE ONE PERSON WHO GOT SERVICE: Blanche interviewed Maxwell himself in July
2025. Days later she was moved out of a low-security prison to a minimum-security camp with
no fence. The victims got redactions. The convicted trafficker got a transfer. In my opinion, that
is not law enforcement. That is coverage.
WING TWO: THE CLAIM: In January Trump sued the IRS for ten billion dollars over his leaked
returns. Ten billion. Not for money taken from him, but for embarrassment. Reputational harm.
The injury nobody can x-ray, the sore back of civil litigation. He filed as a private citizen, joined
by two of his sons and the family company.
Now ask the obvious question: what proof of ten billion dollars in damage was ever put on the record?
None. The figures that leaked were his own true numbers. No court ever weighed a dollar
of it, because the case never got that far.
AND WHO WAS ON THE OTHER SIDE? This is the part to sit with. In a real lawsuit, opposing
counsel makes you prove every dollar you claim. Who is the IRS’s lawyer? The Justice Department.
And who ran the Justice Department? The President’s own former defense attorney, who
negotiated the deal personally. The man demanding ten billion and the office defending against
it answered to the same desk. There was no adversary. There was only a signature.
WHAT CHANGED HANDS: Trump dropped the claim. In exchange, the government agreed
never to audit him, his two eldest sons, or the Trump Organization on any return filed before
May 19. Tax attorneys say the IRS has never granted anyone such protection. By the Times’ reading
of his returns, one earlier audit alone could have cost him more than a hundred million dollars.
That money was never his. It was yours.
JUL ‘25
NOV ‘25
JAN 29
APR 2
MAY 19
AUG 8
AUG 16
Blanche interviews Maxwell; days later she is moved to a minimumsecurity
camp
Epstein Files Transparency Act signed after a 427–1 House vote; 30
days to comply
Trump, two sons and the Trump Organization sue the IRS and
Treasury for $10 billion
Bondi removed; Blanche, the President’s former defense lawyer, takes
over as acting attorney general
Settlement: claim dropped, audits closed on every return filed before
that date
Blanche confirmed 50–49; the $1.8 billion allies’ fund killed, the audit
deal untouched
Declines on television to pledge independence from the White House
When I filed this case, I expected a straightforward
process involving discovery and documents.
If the record supported it, I also expected
the true wrongdoer to be named as a third
party defendant.
That is not what has happened. It is my
opinion that discovery in this matter is being
shaped by people whose names do not appear
in the case caption. I cannot prove that today,
and I will not tell readers otherwise. I can only
tell you what I believe and why I am acting on it.
I am therefore pausing my lawsuit.
I want to be plain about Berkshire Hathaway.
My view is that the company and its agents may
themselves have been used by someone else
who gave them a version of events and left
them to act on it.
“Berkshire is not the author of this
defamation but a vehicle for it.”
If I am right, Berkshire is not the author of
this defamation but a vehicle for it. To the extent
that my filings suggested otherwise, my
apology is sincere.
My hope is that Berkshire Hathaway or its
agents will come forward or tell others what I
suspect they may already know: the origin of
this matter is federal.
I remain of the view that my dispute with
the federal government is ongoing and that the
government’s objective is to silence and discredit
me.
Free speech has cost me a great deal. In this
political climate, it is plainly not free.
Brent Lambi
The opinions expressed above
are solely those of the author.
by Brent Lambi | Aug 23, 2026 | Uncategorized
by Brent Lambi | Aug 21, 2026 | Political
WANTED TO BELIEVE IT. In 1980 I cast my
ballot for John Anderson, an independent, because
a government too large to audit is a government
too large to trust. So when a movement
arrived promising to shrink it, end the
wars, balance the books and enforce the law,
I gave it a hearing. Eleven years on, I will say
plainly what I have concluded: it is the biggest
lie I have ever witnessed.
LAW AND ORDER, EXCEPT AT THE TOP. In
2024, Chairman Comer and Senator Grassley
wrote to the FBI accusing it of quietly revising
crime figures and calling the numbers unreliable.
Today the same party quotes the same
system as proof of its own success. I will concede
the decline is real: homicides fell 18 percent
in the first half of this year, and independent
analysts say so, not just the government.
But a party that trusts the measuring stick only
when it flatters its case has not adopted a standard.
It has adopted a scoreboard.
AND THEN THE PARDONS. Juan Orlando
Hernández moved more than four hundred
tons of cocaine and drew forty-five years.
He served roughly eighteen months and
walked out on a signature. Ross Ulbricht.
Larry Hoover. Some 100 drug-related clemencies.
Roughly 1,500 January 6 defendants,
including men convicted of assaulting police
officers. Ninety-six percent of second-term
grants were issued outside Justice Department
review. That is not law and order. That
is a favor window.
The kingpin got a signature.
The trafficker got a transfer.
The girls got a sealed file.
The Biggest Lie I Have
Ever Witnessed
I voted for John Anderson in 1980 because I believed
big government was dangerous. I still believe it.
That is exactly why I cannot vote for this one.
NO FOREIGN WARS. We fought a war with
Iran that Congress never voted on. The Abraham
Lincoln’s crew has been at sea more than
260 days with no date home. Iran sells its oil
at a better price today than before we started.
A BALANCED BUDGET. $39.8 trillion. About
$286,000 per household. Interest now costs
more than defense. Every point of it lands on
your mortgage, your car note and your child’s
tuition, all parts of the finances you were
promised you would control.
AND THE CHILDREN. The Epstein Files
Transparency Act passed the House 427–1
and was signed in November 2025. Nine
months later the file is still shut. But Ghislaine
Maxwell, days after a private meeting
with the Deputy Attorney General, was
moved to a minimum-security camp that
Bureau of Prisons policy says a sex offender
cannot be assigned to at all. No survivor ever
got that consideration.
I DID NOT LEAVE A MOVEMENT.
THE MOVEMENT LEFT THE OATH.
Source note: Clemency, crime and appropriation figuresThe Right Move for
the Wrong Reason
Scaling back the Korea drills is the first real
de-escalation of this term. Now do it three more times.
ONE GOOD ORDER. On Sunday the president instructed Secretary Hegseth to “substantially
reduce” the joint exercises with South Korea, calling them costly and a signal that is “totally inappropriate
and hostile” toward a North Korea he says has not been threatening. Set the messenger
aside. Lowering the temperature on the most heavily armed border on earth is the correct call,
and the first of its kind this term.
NOW DO IT AGAIN. The same week, he told Fox News that if Oman gets in the way, we will
bomb it. That is not a policy. That is a mood. Iran remains under an American air campaign
Congress never voted on. Maduro was taken by force in January. Greenland belongs to a NATO
ally, and this White House will not rule out taking it. No foreign wars was the promise. It has been
broken in three theaters.
“Withdrawal is not weakness. Keeping a promise never is.”
AND USE THE RELATIONSHIP. If the friendship with Kim Jong Un is real, spend it. Pyongyang
has shipped Russia some 33,000 containers of arms and buried thousands of its own men in
Kursk. Ask him to stop. That is what a good relationship is for.
THE HONEST PART. The stated reason was not peace. It was irritation that Seoul would not join
the Iran war. And the order came Sunday, while the drills began Monday, reduced but not canceled.
A right move made for a wrong reason is still a right move. It is also still a shaky foundation.
FOUR THEATERS, ONE PROMISE
KOREA Ulchi Freedom Shield cut on the president’s order, Aug. 16.
IRAN American air campaign continues. Congress has never voted.
VENEZUELA Maduro seized by U.S. forces, Jan. 3, 2026.
GREENLAND A NATO ally’s territory. Force not ruled out.
PYONGYANG ~33,000 containers of arms to Russia; troops in Kursk.
THE PROMISE “No foreign wars.” Kept in one place out of four.
Source: Truth Social post of Aug. 16, 2026; AP/PBS, NPR, Reuters, Al Jazeera, Foreign Policy and CNN reporting
of Aug. 16–17, 2026; Defense News and Washington Times reporting on DPRK support to Russia.
DE-ESCALATION IS NOT SURRENDER.
IT IS THE PROMISE YOU RAN ON.
NOW KEEP IT IN TEHRAN, IN CARACAS, AND IN NUUK.
NO MORE FOREIGN WARS
KEEP THE PROMISE.
Sources: Truman diary (May 1945); Executive Order 11154 (1964); Church Committee reports (1975–76);
Senate and Justice Department records, August 2026; Washington Post, PBS/AP, NBC News, Time, The Hill.
If J. Edgar Hoover
Became President
J. Edgar Hoover held one desk for forty-eight years and made
eight presidents afraid of him. In my opinion, we are now
watching the same instinct with every desk in its hands.
THE MAN WITH THE FILES. J. Edgar Hoover ran the Bureau from 1924 to 1972, through eight
presidents, and none of them fired him. His authority was never statutory. It sat in the locked
“Official and Confidential” files in his own office: derogatory material on congressmen, senators
and presidents. Truman wrote in 1945 that the FBI was drifting toward a Gestapo and dabbling
in sex-life scandals and blackmail. Johnson exempted him from mandatory retirement. Even
Robert Kennedy, with a brother in the White House, could not control him. Within days of his
death, his secretary destroyed the files.
AND WHAT HE DID TO CRITICS. In 1964 the Bureau mailed Dr. King an anonymous letter and
a tape urging him to end his own life. Agents planted a false story about the actress Jean Seberg
with a gossip columnist. Melvin Purvis, the agent who got the credit for Dillinger, was pushed
out and frozen out afterward. The Church Committee documented the pattern. Cross J. Edgar
Hoover, and you were not argued with. You were ruined.
AND THE PART HE HID. He ran a “Sex Deviates” program that collected files on suspected homosexuals
and got them fired from government work by the thousands, while spending his life
beside Clyde Tolson, his deputy, constant companion, and heir. His own private life was never
established, and the lurid stories remain unproven. What is documented is the arrangement:
one standard enforced on strangers, another kept for himself.
J. Edgar Hoover never had to win an argument.
He only had to have a file.
THE SAME INSTINCT, ALL THE DESKS. The Attorney General is the President’s former defense
lawyer, confirmed 50–49, three weeks after a federal judge set aside his settlement with
that same client, finding it had been filed in bad faith. The FBI Director has polygraphed his
own detail hunting leakers, turned the Bureau toward reporters who wrote about him, and sued
a magazine for describing him. Homeland Security is run by a senator introduced as a MAGA
warrior. The Homeland Security Secretary kept her job after federal agents killed two American
citizens in Minneapolis; she lost it over a $220 million advertising campaign featuring her on
horseback. J. Edgar Hoover would have recognized every part of that.
AND STILL NOTHING WAS DELIVERED. Retribution rules, and the public was played the
fool. Nine months after a transparency law passed 427–1, the Epstein file still takes a judge to
pry loose. Gasoline is up 26.7 percent, compared with 3.2 percent wage growth. Premiums rose
about 26 percent, with no replacement plan. The debt is $39.8 trillion.
THE HONEST PART. Presidents appoint allies; that is the job, and the Senate signs off. J. Edgar
Hoover was never elected and could not be removed. These men can be. But appointees leave
and judges do not.
J. EDGAR HOOVER NEEDED FORTY-EIGHT YEARS AND A FILE CABINET.
THIS ONE NEEDED NINETEEN MONTHS AND A SIGNATURE.
RETRIBUTION RULES. THE PUBLIC WAS PLAYED THE FOOL.
REPAIR TAKES LONGER THAN RUIN When I filed this case, I expected a straightforward
process involving discovery and documents.
If the record supported it, I also expected
the true wrongdoer to be named as a third
party defendant.
That is not what has happened. It is my
opinion that discovery in this matter is being
shaped by people whose names do not appear
in the case caption. I cannot prove that today,
and I will not tell readers otherwise. I can only
tell you what I believe and why I am acting on it.
I am therefore pausing my lawsuit.
I want to be plain about Berkshire Hathaway.
My view is that the company and its agents may
themselves have been used by someone else
who gave them a version of events and left
them to act on it.
“Berkshire is not the author of this
defamation but a vehicle for it.”
If I am right, Berkshire is not the author of
this defamation but a vehicle for it. To the extent
that my filings suggested otherwise, my
apology is sincere.
My hope is that Berkshire Hathaway or its
agents will come forward or tell others what I
suspect they may already know: the origin of
this matter is federal.
I remain of the view that my dispute with
the federal government is ongoing and that the
government’s objective is to silence and discredit
me.
Free speech has cost me a great deal. In this
political climate, it is plainly not free.
Brent Lambi
The opinions expressed above
are solely those of the author.
are drawn from public records and cited reporting
by Brent Lambi | Aug 19, 2026 | Uncategorized
FIRST, THE RÉSUMÉ. Twice impeached.
Thirty-four felony convictions in a New York
courtroom in 2024. I would not hire a convicted
felon to run a prison. In my opinion, the
same standard belongs on the ballot for the
office that runs the country.
AND THEN HE GOT THE KEYS. What does
a felon do when you put him in charge of the
cellblock? He opens the doors for the dealers.
Name them: Juan Orlando Hernández, the
former Honduran president sentenced to 45
years for moving more than 400 tons of cocaine.
He was pardoned December 1, 2025,
and released the same day. Ross Ulbricht of
Silk Road had two life terms and was pardoned
on day one. Larry Hoover of the Gangster Disciples
had multiple life sentences commuted.
Michael “Harry-O” Harris was pardoned.
Garnett Gilbert Smith, a Baltimore kingpin
who served 25 years for violent drug offenses,
was pardoned. The Washington Post counts
roughly 100 drug-related clemencies.
AND THE FILE HE WILL NOT OPEN. The
House passed the Epstein Files Transparency
Act 427 to 1. He signed it in November 2025.
Nine months later the Justice Department is
still withholding, and a federal judge has had
to be asked to enforce a law almost nobody
voted against.
AND WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU ASK. Marjorie
Taylor Greene signed the discharge petition
that forced that vote. Her endorsement
was pulled, she was called a traitor, and she
resigned January 5. Rep. Thomas Massie
co-sponsored it and lost his primary May 19 to
a Trump-backed challenger. That is not a coincidence.
That is a published price list.
AND THE ONE PERSON WHO GOT CONSIDERATION.
Not one survivor got a hearing.
Ghislaine Maxwell got a transfer. Days after a
private meeting with Deputy Attorney General
Todd Blanche in July 2025, the woman
convicted of grooming underage girls for Epstein
was moved out of low-security Tallahassee
and into FPC Bryan, a minimum-security
camp in Texas with dormitories and no fence.
Bureau of Prisons policy says a sex offender
should never have qualified for a camp at all.
In March, members of Congress wrote that of
some 3.5 million documents produced under
the Act, not one records the transfer or who
authorized it. Inmates who spoke to reporters
about her were reportedly threatened; at least
one was shipped out.
AND WHAT PRISON USUALLY COSTS A
CHILD OFFENDER. Inside a prison, offenses
against children sit at the bottom of every hierarchy,
and the consequence is not theoretical.
Larry Nassar was stabbed roughly ten times in
his cell at a federal penitentiary in 2023, in a
unit built to keep sex offenders apart from everyone
else. Ordinary men convicted of what
Maxwell was convicted of serve their sentences
under that threat, behind double fences, in
protective housing. She serves hers on a camp
yard with no fence at all.
AND WHAT A SEALED FILE ACTUALLY
PROTECTS. Nine years on, exactly one person
is in prison for any of it, and she sleeps better
than she did in Florida. The survivors are still
waiting. Everyone else in those pages is still
going to work. In my opinion, a file guarded
this hard is not being guarded to protect the
girls. It is being guarded to protect the men.
THE HONEST PART. The pardon power is
absolute and unreviewable, and some grants
are genuinely merciful. Endorsements are
ordinary politics, and no candidate controls
who praises him. But every candidate controls
whether to accept it, and I have yet to see one
decline. The Bureau has never given a reason
for the transfer, and no court has found that
the withholding shields anyone. That is the
point. Nobody outside the Department can
say what the file protects, because nobody
outside the Department has read it.
I am an Independent. I do not vote on command.
When a candidate needs that endorsement
to survive a primary, he has already told
you whose interests he will serve.
AND THE PART NOBODY WANTS SAID
OUT LOUD. A vote is not a feeling. It is an
instrument. If you cast it for a candidate who
holds his seat at the pleasure of that endorsement,
you are not voting for a farm bill. You
are supplying the one thing that makes all of
the rest of it possible: a majority. The kingpin
walked out on a signature. The file Congress
ordered opened stays shut. Neither of those
things needed your approval. Both of them
needed your vote.
“He is not asking for your vote.
He is telling you who already has it.”
THE SURVIVORS ARE STILL WAITING.
THEIR TRAFFICKER GOT A TRANSFER.
A VOTE THAT FREES THE
DEALER AND SEALS THE FILE
IS NOT CONSERVATIVE. IT IS
NOT PATRIOTIC. IN MY OPINION,
IT IS UN-AMERICAN.
MAGA = FELONY ENABLERS.
ASK WHO ELSE IS ON THE BALLOT.
Sources: U.S. Dept. of Justice Office of the Pardon Attorney; The Washington Post; NPR; Associated Press; PBS
NewsHour; Congressional Research Service (IN12621); House Clerk roll call on H.R. 4405; Bureau of Prisons;
Rep. Ross and Rep. Raskin letter to BOP, March 2, 2026.
THE NUMBER THAT MOVES THE MARKET.
The National Corn Growers Association puts
it in plain arithmetic: each percentage point
added to the national blend rate consumes
1.36 billion gallons of ethanol, or 486 million
bushels of corn. The average today sits near
10.5 percent. A twenty percent floor is nine
and a half points, roughly 4.6 billion bushels
of new annual demand. Iowa already makes
4.6 billion gallons of the country’s ethanol, 28
percent of it, and grinds better than 1.5 billion
bushels doing it. Nebraska’s twenty-four
biorefineries make another 2.3 billion gallons.
The capacity is built. The demand is not.
AND WHAT THAT PAYS THE FARMER.
The EPA’s own meta-analysis of the ethanol
literature found that each additional billion
gallons of corn ethanol lifts long-run corn
prices two to three percent. E20 adds 12.9
billion gallons. Against the $4.25 Central Illinois
bid of August 6 that is $5.35 to $5.90 a
bushel. E30 adds 26.5 billion gallons; that is
$6.50 to $7.65. Cross-check it the other way:
the last time the carryout fell to 7.4 percent, in
2012/13, corn averaged $6.89. Two different
methods, the same neighborhood.
WHAT IT DOES TO THE AIR. AND WHO IT
KEEPS ALIVE. Ethanol carries its own oxygen
and displaces petroleum octane boosters such
as benzene, toluene and xylene, aromatics
tied to known carcinogens. Against a high-aromatic
E10, the University of California-Riverside
measured E30 cutting carbon monoxide
20 to 35 percent, nitrogen oxides 17 to 36 percent
and non-methane hydrocarbons up to 44
percent, with particulate mass and black carbon
down as well. The light-duty fleet is tied to
roughly 16,000 fine-particulate deaths a year.
Apply those reductions and E20 saves on the
order of 1,300 to 1,900 American lives annually;
E30, 2,400 to 4,000. Valued at the federal
government’s $14.1 million statistical life, with
the hospital admissions and lost work days
that travel with the same particulates, that is
$20 to $29 billion a year at E20 and $37 to $61
billion at E30.
Twenty Now. Thirty in Three Years. And a Car That Can Drink It.
BUILD THE CAR FOR IT. A blend floor is only
half the job. Flex-fuel capability, including an
ethanol sensor, resistant seals and a software
calibration, costs a manufacturer $100 to $210
per vehicle by MIT’s estimate. That is a set of
floor mats. Require it on every new light-duty
vehicle, phased by model year, and 250 million
tailpipes become a market petroleum has
to bid for instead of one it inherits. And it is
nobody’s partisan hobbyhorse: the Open Fuel
Standard Act was carried by Dick Lugar with
Maria Cantwell, and by John Shimkus with
Eliot Engel.
“Twenty percent puts $5.35 to
$5.90 in the cash column; it takes
not one acre to do it.”
AND NOT ONE ACRE TAKEN. Here is what
a blend floor does not require. Chasing the
low-carbon credit by pipeline has cost Iowa
five years of condemnation fights, a ban that
passed its House 64 to 28 in January, and a
governor’s veto the year before. South Dakota
outlawed the taking outright. Nebraska got its
line by converting a pipe already in the ground.
A blend mandate needs none of it. It moves
4.6 billion bushels without one easement, one
condemnation board, or one farmer told his
ground serves a public use that turns out to
be somebody’s balance sheet. Seizing private
land for private gain was wrong when Kelo
blessed it in 2005 and it is wrong now. Require
the pumps to carry E20 and E30, protect ethanol-
free gasoline for small engines, and leave
the deed alone.
AND WHAT IT DOES TO THE MAP. Hormuz
has been shut since February 28. We take little
Gulf crude, but we buy fuel at the price that
strait sets and keep a carrier there to hold it
open. A gallon distilled in Nebraska needs no
sailor to guard it.
AND NOBODY HAS TO CHANGE PARTIES.
This is not a red bill or a blue one. The Nationwide
Consumer and Fuel Retailer Choice Act
was carried by Deb Fischer of Nebraska with
Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, and in the House
by Adrian Smith with Angie Craig of Minnesota,
with cosponsors running from Thune and
Grassley to Durbin and Baldwin. The corn
growers endorsed it, the Farmers Union endorsed
it, and so did the American Petroleum
Institute. When the oil lobby and the corn lobby
sign the same letter, the argument is settled
everywhere but the floor of Congress.
THE HONEST PART. The corn figures extrapolate
past the volumes the underlying studies
examined, and E30’s 9.5 billion bushels is
more corn than we now grind, feed and export
combined. The lives and dollar figures are
ours, based on measured tailpipe reductions
applied to a published mortality total, not
a study of a blend mandate. Aldehydes rise
with ethanol. And blending is no substitute
for sequestration, which sells into aviation
and marine fuel. Three years is aggressive.
Phase it, and build to it.
E20 NOW. E30 BY 2029.
AND FLEX FUEL IN EVERY NEW CAR.
GROW THE FUEL. CLEAR THE AIR.
AND LEAVE THE DEED ALONE.
NO PARTY OWNS THIS ONE.
DEMAND IT FROM BOTH.
We want real solutions, not more empty promises. A bushel that leaves the county as fuel is worth more than one that leaves
as feed, a driver with only one fuel is not a customer, and this has been a bipartisan bill since the day it was written.
Sources: NCGA/RFA; American Farm Bureau Federation; USDA WASDE and ERS; EPA, Impacts of Ethanol Policy on Corn Prices: A Review; University of California-Riverside (Energy & Fuels);
Choma et al. on light-duty fleet mortality; HHS 2026 standard regulatory values; MIT via Cantwell-Lugar; Iowa Renewable Fuels Assn.; Nebraska Ethanol Board; Iowa Capital Dispatch; IEA.
When I filed this case, I expected a straightforward
process involving discovery and documents.
If the record supported it, I also expected
the true wrongdoer to be named as a third
party defendant.
That is not what has happened. It is my
opinion that discovery in this matter is being
shaped by people whose names do not appear
in the case caption. I cannot prove that today,
and I will not tell readers otherwise. I can only
tell you what I believe and why I am acting on it.
I am therefore pausing my lawsuit.
I want to be plain about Berkshire Hathaway.
My view is that the company and its agents may
themselves have been used by someone else
who gave them a version of events and left
them to act on it.
“Berkshire is not the author of this
defamation but a vehicle for it.”
If I am right, Berkshire is not the author of
this defamation but a vehicle for it. To the extent
that my filings suggested otherwise, my
apology is sincere.
My hope is that Berkshire Hathaway or its
agents will come forward or tell others what I
suspect they may already know: the origin of
this matter is federal.
I remain of the view that my dispute with
the federal government is ongoing and that the
government’s objective is to silence and discredit
me.
Free speech has cost me a great deal. In this
political climate, it is plainly not free.
Brent Lambi
The opinions expressed above
are solely those of the author.
