by Brent Lambi | Sep 20, 2026 | Political
RIVA Over RINO: The Real Betrayal of Republican Values
PAID FOR BY HONESTY REPORTING LLC WWW. HONEST-POLITICS.COM
Dear Fellow Former Republican Voters,
There was a time when being a Republican meant something. It meant balanced budgets, not bloated
deficits masked by bluster. It meant limited government, not an executive branch that bulldozes
every institution standing in its way. It meant respecting the rule of law, not treating court orders like
suggestions and Supreme Court justices like subordinates on a payroll.
Donald Trump didn’t save the Republican Party. He hijacked it.
And his favorite weapon? The word “RINO,” short for Republican In Name Only, hurled like a
grenade at anyone who dares remember what the party once stood for. The irony is breathtaking. The
man who donated to Democrats for decades, who praised Hillary Clinton, who holds no fixed
ideology beyond self-promotion, has crowned himself the arbiter of Republican authenticity. He
doesn’t get to hand out membership cards to a party whose principles he’s never bothered to read.
I don’t believe in RINO. I believe in RIVA: Republican In Values Always.
RIVA means you honor those who served. John McCain spent five and a half years as a
prisoner of war in Vietnam, refusing early release because he wouldn’t leave his fellow
soldiers behind. Trump’s response? “I like people who weren’t captured.” Let that sink
in. That was a man with five deferments mocking a man who was tortured for his
country. McCain, Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Mitt Romney, Colin Powell, and the late
George H.W. Bush, decorated veterans and public servants among them, were dismissed,
degraded, and cast out because they refused to bend the knee. Gold Star families
attacked. Generals ridiculed. The party of national defense now wages war on its own
heroes.
RIVA means you remember when Ronald Reagan stood at the Brandenburg Gate and demanded that
walls come down, not go up. Reagan championed free trade, warning that tariffs are taxes on your
own citizens disguised as toughness. Today’s Republican Party slaps tariffs on allies and calls it
patriotism. Reagan would call it what it is: economic illiteracy wrapped in a flag.
RIVA means you remember when political opponents were adversaries, not enemies. Reagan and
Tip O’Neill fought like hell over policy, then shared a drink. They disagreed on principles, not
personal vendettas. Today, dissent within the party is met not with debate but with intimidation:
primary threats, social media mobs, and the RINO label branded on anyone who votes their
conscience.
RIVA means you understand that NATO wasn’t a protection racket; it was the greatest security
alliance in human history, built on American leadership. Our allies in Europe once looked to us as
partners and protectors. Now they draft contingency plans in case we become the threat.
RIVA means you understand that the Supreme Court is part of a co-equal branch of government, not
a rubber stamp or a team of employees who owe their boss loyalty. The judiciary exists to check
power, not serve it.
And let us address the elephant in the room that the party refuses to acknowledge: never in the
history of the Republican Party, or in the history of the American presidency, has a candidate carried
34 felony convictions into the Oval Office. Not one. Not ever. We would never allow a convicted
felon to run a prison. We wouldn’t trust one to manage a school district or oversee a police
department. But we’ll hand him the nuclear codes and the fate of 330 million Americans? What
precedent does this set? What message does it send to every child taught that character matters, that
actions have consequences, that the law applies equally to all?
The real RINOs aren’t John McCain, Liz Cheney, Mitt Romney, or Adam Kinzinger. The real
Republican In Name Only is the man who uses the party as a vehicle for personal power while
abandoning every value it once held sacred.
Intimidation is not leadership. Loyalty tests are not principles. And a party built on one man’s ego is
not a party at all; it’s a cult.
It’s time to stop asking who’s a “real” Republican and start asking: what do we actually stand for?
RIVA. Republican In Values Always. That’s worth fighting for.
Sincerely,
Brent Lambi
by Brent Lambi | Sep 20, 2026 | Political
HONEST POLITICS
WITHOUT READER SUPPORT
THIS COLUMN DISAPPEARS.
Brent Lambi
THE DRUG WAR LEDGER
Trump Administration Failure at the DEA
Every Part of This Operation Has Been Placed Beyond the Reach of a Court
Four hundred tons were proven to a jury and pardoned. Two hundred twenty-seven men
were killed on evidence no American has been permitted to see. And thirteen billion dollars
in oil money was routed offshore before a creditor could ask a judge about it.
THE COUNTRY DID NOT ASK FOR FOOTAGE.
IT ASKED FOR CONVICTIONS.
A GOVERNMENT THAT WILL NOT LET A COURT SEE THE
EVIDENCE, THE MONEY, OR THE DEAD HAS NOT WON A WAR.
IT HAS ONLY ENDED THE TRIAL.
PROVE IT IN A COURTROOM
DON’T VOTE REPUBLICAN!
START WITH THE TONNAGE,
BECAUSE THE TONNAGE IS THE
WHOLE ARGUMENT.
The Justice Department proved to a Manhattan
jury that Juan Orlando Hernández, the sitting
president of Honduras for eight of those years,
and his co-conspirators moved more than 400
tons of U.S.-bound cocaine through Honduras
between 2004 and 2022. Not alleged. Proven, in
March 2024, at the standard the Constitution
requires. In June 2024 a Republican-appointed
judge sentenced him to 45 years.
Now measure that against what this country
can actually catch. Four hundred tons is
800,000 pounds. In fiscal year 2025 the United
States Coast Guard had the single best year
in the 235-year history of the service, seizing
511,000 pounds of narcotics valued at more
than $3.8 billion. Before that, the service’s average
annual haul was roughly 167,000 pounds.
So one man’s conspiracy moved more cocaine
than the entire United States Coast
Guard seized in the best year it has ever had,
exceeding that total by more than half again.
At the Coast Guard’s own valuation, 400 tons
is worth roughly six billion dollars. It is twenty
times the MSC Gayane load: the 20 tons pulled
off a container ship in Philadelphia in 2019,
the largest cocaine seizure in the 230-year history
of U.S. Customs.
On December 1, 2025, the President pardoned
him. He walked out the same day, three days after
the pardon was announced on social media
alongside an endorsement in the Honduran
election. The Washington Post counts roughly
100 drug-related clemency grants across this
President’s two terms; in August, House Judiciary
Democrats alleged a pay-to-play clemency
market around the White House.
Four hundred tons, proven to twelve
Americans, undone by one signature.
Two hundred twenty-seven men, proven
to no one, undone by a missile.
THE PREVIOUS ADMINISTRATION FILED
CASES. THAT IS THE COMPARISON.
Under Attorney General Merrick Garland, the
DEA ran Operation Last Mile: 1,436 investigations
from May 2022 to May 2023 against
Sinaloa and Jalisco networks inside the United
States. The result: 3,337 arrests, nearly 44
million fentanyl pills, 6,500 pounds of fentanyl
powder, 91,000 pounds of methamphetamine,
8,497 firearms, and over $100 million seized. In
April 2023 the department indicted 28 Sinaloa
members, including the leadership known as
the Chapitos. In 2023 the DEA seized 77 million
fentanyl pills and nearly 12,000 pounds of
THE DUPLICATION NOBODY VOTED FOR
Two Water Plants,
Two Fire Departments,
Two Schools
We Would Never Fund the First Two.
We Are Funding the Third.
A voucher does not move a child. It builds a second
building and bills it to your property.
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.”
ONE SYSTEM. ONE BILL. TAUGHT WELL.
STOP PAYING TWICE AND LOWER OUR
PROPERTY TAXES.
GOOD IOWANS WANT BOTH
LOWER TAXES AND BETTER SCHOOLS.
Sources: Iowa State Auditor, ESA program report, June 17, 2026; Legislative Services Agency; Iowa Dept. of Education. The
athletics range is an estimate applying a published national 1–3 percent share of district spending to Iowa and Nebraska
totals; neither state reports athletics as a budget line.
NO TOWN BUILDS IT TWICE.
Osage does not run two water plants. Belle Plaine does not staff two fire departments. Des
Moines does not stock two city library systems. When a community needs a service, it builds
one, maintains one, and pays for one. Yet Iowa taxpayers now fund two parallel school systems
in towns like Iowa Falls that could barely carry the first. A voucher does not simply move a child.
It duplicates the building, the boiler, the roof and the gymnasium. The public school’s fixed costs
do not shrink when a student leaves; the heating bill and the bond payment stay exactly where
they were. That is capital outlay charged twice to the same property owner.
WHAT IT COST.
Iowa’s voucher program cost an estimated $329.6 million in fiscal 2026. The State Auditor found
that 78.5 percent of recipients were already enrolled in private school, representing roughly
$258.7 million to underwrite tuition that families were already paying themselves. That is not
opportunity created. That is a bill transferred. Private schools are fine institutions, and parents
are free to choose them. They should not have access to public tax dollars to do it.
AND THE ENTERTAINMENT BUDGET.
National estimates put school athletics at 1 to 3 percent of district spending. Across Iowa and
Nebraska, that would amount to somewhere between $285 and $425 million a year in coaching
stipends, activity travel and fuel, referees, equipment, insurance, grounds crews and swimming
pools. Neither state publishes the figure as a line item. That silence is itself the story. Nobody is
banning a ball. Towns, churches, clubs and Legion posts ran youth sports for a century without a
school board. Let boosters buy the trophies. Let the district buy the teacher.
TEACH THE ARITHMETIC.
We tell our children to balance a checkbook, live inside a budget, and never buy the same thing
twice. Then we hand them a state that does the opposite and call it choice. Fund reading, writing
and arithmetic first, then welding, wiring, plumbing, diesel, nursing and bookkeeping. Teach
skills that make a mortgage payment the first Monday after graduation.
by Brent Lambi | Sep 20, 2026 | Political
THE RED SCARE RERUN
They Cry
“Communist.”
Look Who Rolled Out the Red Carpet.
A party with no plan for your grocery bill has found
one word for November. In my opinion, it is
pointing at the wrong address.
THE WEDDING GIFT. Now follow the money. ProPublica reports that Umar
Kremlev, a Russian oligarch close to Vladimir Putin, paid hundreds of thousands
of dollars toward Donald Trump Jr.’s Bahamas wedding celebrations: a
private island, the fireworks, the works. The family calls it a gift from a friend.
Ukraine calls him sanctioned.
“They warn you about the red menace.
Then they roll out the red carpet.”
THE RED CARPET. Who laid an actual red carpet in Anchorage for Vladimir
Putin, a former KGB officer wanted by the International Criminal Court for the
deportation of Ukrainian children? Donald Trump.
Who keeps pressing Ukraine, the country that was invaded, to take a deal with
the country that invaded it? Donald Trump.
Who now blames your diesel prices on Ukraine for hitting Russian refineries
rather than on Moscow for starting the war? Donald Trump.
This is a man who said he and Kim Jong Un “fell in love.” Senators who once
built careers standing up to Moscow now stand behind him and point at a thirtyfour-
year-old city councilman.
THE HONEST PART. Democratic socialists did win primaries this year, and
some planks of their platform deserve hard debate. Democrats are not communists.
Neither, strictly, is Putin: his Russia is an authoritarian oil kleptocracy, not
a Marxist state. No one has shown that the wedding money bought a policy, and
the President says his pressure on Kyiv is about ending a war. Readers should
weigh all of it. But a party that shouts “communist” while its leader hosts Moscow’s
strongman has forfeited the right to be taken seriously on the subject.
THE BALLOT QUESTION. Every Republican on your November ballot should
answer one question on the record: Will you condemn a Putin-connected oligarch
paying for the President’s son’s wedding, yes or no? If they cannot say it,
they have told you who they answer to.
Sources: ProPublica; Axios; NBC News; The New York Times; NPR; The Hill; MS NOW.
THE CARPET Anchorage, Aug. 15, 2025: red carpet for Putin
THE WEDDING Putin-tied oligarch paid for an island and fireworks
THE WAR Kyiv pressed to take a deal with its invader
THE DIESEL Prices blamed on Ukraine’s refinery strikes
PYONGYANG On Kim: “We fell in love”
THE STOCKS ~30 federal equity stakes, incl. ~10% of Intel
WHO IS CLOSER TO MOSCOW?
by Brent Lambi | Sep 18, 2026 | Political
TEN YEARS, ONE DIRECTION
The Real Communist, or Socialist,
Is a Republican in the White House
A Hundred Thousand Dollars a Night: Paid by a Friend of Vladimir Putin.
A Putin-linked oligarch bankrolled the President’s son’s wedding celebration. The administration
is carrying Moscow’s map to Kyiv. And now the fuel line at home is Ukraine’s fault.
THE GIFT
ProPublica reported Monday that Umar
Kremlev, a Russian oligarch close to Vladimir
Putin, covered hundreds of thousands of dollars
of Donald Trump Jr.’s three-day Bahamas
wedding celebration, based on records and
three people familiar with the event.
The island where guests slept rents for roughly
$100,000 a night. The fireworks ran about
$70,000. The money moved through a Dubai
entity tied to Kremlev’s boxing federation, a
federation financed by Gazprom, the Russian
state’s energy company. The groom is worth
an estimated $300 million. He did not need
the help. He took it anyway.
WE HAVE BEEN HERE
BEFORE WITH THE SAME SON
This is not the first time this particular Trump
has taken a meeting with Moscow.
In June 2016, offered dirt on Hillary Clinton
described in writing as coming from the Russian
government, Donald Trump Jr. answered
“I love it” and booked the room at Trump
Tower. A two-year investigation followed.
Robert Mueller found that Russia interfered
in the election in a sweeping and systematic
fashion; his investigation did not establish
a criminal conspiracy with the campaign.
Print both halves. Then print the bipartisan
one: the Republican-led Senate Intelligence
Committee concluded in 2020 that campaign
chairman Paul Manafort’s sharing of internal
polling data with a man the committee assessed
to be a Russian intelligence officer was
a grave counterintelligence threat. Ten years
later, the same family is still taking the Russian
offer, only now it comes with fireworks.
A gift is not a crime. But a country
is entitled to ask what it bought.
THE GUEST LIST NOBODY WILL PRINT
Was Volodymyr Zelensky invited? Put it plainly:
nobody rented Ukraine an island.
The guest list is not public. Rep. Robert Garcia
A SATIRE: THE HOAX LEDGER
The Hoax Within the Hoax
The World Is Flat, Per Donald Trump
He has now given himself a title: Hoax Buster. But the fraud in this story is the word itself,
deployed nearly 800 times against nearly everything, except the things that actually were.
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.”
THEY DID NOT TORTURE HIM OVER A
FLAT EARTH. NOBODY EVER DID. The
flat earth is a fable, not something medieval
Europe believed, but a story invented about
it centuries later. The Greeks had the globe
measured by 240 B.C. What Galileo Galilei
proved was that the Earth moves, and in 1633
Rome tried him for it, not for lying, but for being
right in public. He was threatened with
the instruments of torture, made to recant on
his knees, and confined to his house for life.
Rome conceded the point in 1992, three hundred
and fifty-nine years later. And a professor
invited to look through the telescope refused,
not because he had weighed the evidence, but
because looking was the risk.
THE CREDENTIAL. On Monday the President
announced that the only guardrail artificial
intelligence requires is “a STRONG AND
SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT.” He then declared,
“I am the Hoax Buster.” Six posts, one
afternoon, no hearing and no vote. American
safety policy for the most powerful technology
ever built now consists of one man’s opinion
of his own intelligence.
THE INTELLECT IN QUESTION. If the credential
is the argument, examine it. This is
the man who told the nation that windmill
noise causes cancer. Who asked on live television
whether disinfectant might be injected
“inside, almost a cleaning” and then called it
sarcasm. Who took a Sharpie to a federal hurricane
map rather than concede a forecast.
Who toured the CDC mid-pandemic and concluded,
“Maybe I have a natural ability.” Who
challenged his own Secretary of State to an IQ
test and named the winner in advance. That is
the lens now pointed at superintelligence.
THE LEDGER. The case file to date:
has had to ask for it, along with records of every
purchase made for the wedding by foreign
nationals, because a minority member can
only request what a majority could compel.
Garcia told Trump Jr. this may be the most serious
allegation against him to date.
THE CARPET CAME FIRST
In August 2025 this administration gave Vladimir
Putin a red carpet on American soil at
Anchorage, a bomber escort overhead, and a
ride in the presidential limousine.
Six months earlier the President of Ukraine,
the man whose country was invaded, was
dressed down in front of the cameras in the
Oval Office. One of those two men started a
war. Only one of them got the carpet.
THE MAP THEY KEEP
CARRYING TO MOSCOW
The President’s envoys, Steve Witkoff and his
son-in-law Jared Kushner, have now made
the Kremlin run repeatedly.
The original 28-point framework was described
by European governments as tilted
toward Moscow and had to be whittled down.
On Sept. 6 the two men spent hours with Putin,
then flew to Kyiv. On Sept. 12, at a forum
in Kyiv, Kushner said the rest of the deal is already
built; the only thing missing is Ukraine
agreeing to pull back to the line Putin has
drawn. That line includes the whole of Donbas,
including ground Russia has not been
able to take by force, plus a permanent bar on
NATO. Moscow’s negotiators also raised joint
economic ventures with the United States.
That is not mediation. That is delivering the
invader’s terms and calling it peace.
AND NOW YOUR DIESEL IS KYIV’S FAULT
Ukraine has found the one weapon that reach-
Sources: ProPublica and Axios (Sept. 14–15, 2026); letters of Rep. Robert Garcia, Sept. 14, 2026; Associated Press, Bloomberg
and Reuters on the Sept. 13 Doonbeg remarks and U.S. diesel prices; NPR, Axios and Ukrainska Pravda on the Sept. 6–12
Witkoff–Kushner talks; Report of Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III (2019); Senate Select Committee on Intelligence,
Russian Active Measures, Vol. 5 (2020).
es Russia’s war economy: cheap drones against
refineries, more than 190 strikes this year.
Diesel is what moves tanks, and it is what buys
them. On Sept. 11 American diesel passed $6
a gallon for the first time. Two days later, from
his golf course in Ireland, the President said
Zelensky “has to stop knocking out diesel fuel
in Russia.” Plenty of other targets, he said. Not
that one. Now weigh his premise. The Strait of
Hormuz has been strangled since his own war
with Iran; the Houthis took Mokha and Perim
Island on Sept. 10 and 11; a Saudi pipeline
built to bypass Hormuz was knocked offline
by drones the same week. Analysts put the
larger share of the squeeze in the Middle East,
not in Ukraine. The President is asking the
invaded country to stop hitting the invader’s
fuel supply, and asking you to believe your
pump price is the victim’s fault.
WHAT REAGAN DID
Reagan did not fly to meet the Soviets to soften
the terms, and he never asked a captive
nation to stand down for the sake of a commodity
price.
He told them to tear the wall down, and he
outspent and outlasted an empire built on
oil and fear. Reagan’s party did not take the
check, did not carry the other side’s map, and
did not guard the other side’s refineries.
THE HONEST PART
No one has proven a quid pro quo here, and
this editorial does not claim one.
Mueller did not establish a conspiracy in 2016,
and that belongs in print as much as the rest.
Trump Jr.’s spokesman calls Kremlev a personal
friend with no business relationship; his
wife says friendship requires no political motive;
the President says he never heard of the
man and was not present. Diesel really is short,
and some of that shortage really does trace to
Ukrainian drones. Take every one of those
concessions. The pattern still runs one way,
in every single instance, for ten years: toward
Moscow. In my opinion, a party that calls that
coincidence is not conservative. It is captured.
THE FUEL THAT FUNDS THE KILLING IS A MILITARY
TARGET, NOT A CAMPAIGN PROBLEM.
STAND WITH REAGAN, NOT WITH THE MEN
WHO ROLLED OUT THE CARPET.
1. Global warming: an “expensive hoax,” once
a Chinese invention. He said he was joking.
2. The Russia investigation: thirty-four indictments
and eight convictions, all hallucinated
by a grand jury.
3. The Steele dossier: a hoax. He got this one
right; more below.
4. Impeachment: both of them. A hoax the
House took a roll call vote on. Twice.
5. Ukraine: still a hoax as of Monday, a million
casualties in.
6. Criticism of the COVID response: “their
new hoax,” February 2020. The 1.2 million
American dead have filed no correction.
7. “Suckers and losers”: a hoax his own chief
of staff confirmed on the record.
8. The Jeffrey Epstein files: a fabrication so
total that Congress voted 427–1 to release it,
and his Justice Department still sits on three
million pages of it.
9. Affordability: “the greatest con job,” disproven
by a Walmart turkey bundle. Your receipt
is in on it.
10. Artificial intelligence: the people who
built it are warning about it, which he offers as
proof they are lying.
The Washington Post counted the word nearly
800 times through 2021 alone.
THE PATTERN IS NOT SUBTLE. A hoax is
never something that flatters him. It is always
something that costs him: a subpoena, a verdict,
a regulation, a grocery bill he would
have to explain. The standard is not evidentiary;
it is an invoice. Note Monday’s tell: he
did not argue that AI is safe. He argued that
the industry’s founders are conspiring to
bankrupt themselves.
A hoax, in this administration, is any
fact that arrives with an invoice.
WHAT A HOAX ACTUALLY IS. A hoax is a
deliberate deception. It requires a hoaxer, so
we are owed names. Who paid the ice to melt?
Which operative persuaded the chief executives
of Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceX to
campaign against their own valuations? He
never says. That is the hoax within the hoax:
the word itself, sold as an investigation when it
has only ever been a verdict issued in advance.
THE HONEST PART. He has not been wrong
every time, and an honest paper says so. The
Steele dossier was substantially discredited.
The claim that Hunter Biden’s laptop
was Russian disinformation was false, and
fifty-one former intelligence officials signed
it anyway. Yet a man who calls everything a
hoax will one day stand in front of a real one,
and nobody will be able to tell.
THE TELESCOPE IS STILL SITTING
THERE. The men who built the machine are
asking him to look through it. He has ruled the
instrument a hoax, the builders a conspiracy,
and his own IQ the lens. Four hundred years,
and we are back to a man who will not put his
eye to the glass, except that Galileo’s accusers
had to hold a trial. This one posts.
THE BIGGEST HOAX OF ALL. Set the ledger
aside, because the largest fraud on it is the
credential itself. He has spent fifty years advertising
an intellect he has never once documented.
No IQ score has ever been produced.
His own former attorney testified under oath
that he was sent to threaten Trump’s schools
with legal action if they released his grades
or his test scores. He has claimed he finished
first in his class at Wharton; the published
honors lists do not carry his name. He sold a
university that was not a university and paid
$25 million to end the fraud suit. The man offering
his brain as the sole safeguard against
superintelligence will not release a transcript.
Every hoax on this page was named by someone
with something to hide. This is the one he
will never investigate.
THE WORLD IS NOT FLAT. IT NEVER WAS.
THE HIGHEST IQ IN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORY:
THAT IS THE BIGGEST HOAX OF ALL TIME.
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
