The Compliment You Didn’t Ask For / The Sickness No Medical School Can Cure / The Strait is Not The Border / What the Pool Reflects

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

HONEST POLITICS
Brent Lambi
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.
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 LONGEST CON
In 1974, Republicans of substance walked into the Oval Office and said STOP.
Today, saying stop is what gets you destroyed.
SEVEN COUNTS AGAINST THE ENABLING PARTY
ON AUGUST 7, 1974, three Republicans walked into the Oval Office and told a Republican
president he did not have the votes and was not going to get them. Barry Goldwater.
Hugh Scott. John Rhodes. Two weeks earlier, six Republicans on the House Judiciary
Committee had crossed the aisle to vote articles of impeachment. Elliot Richardson
and William Ruckelshaus had resigned rather than fire a prosecutor. Howard Baker
had asked the question that ended a presidency.
Nobody called them traitors. They were called Republicans.
They did not act alone. Katharine Graham kept the Washington Post printing while
that same White House went after the broadcast licenses of her television stations. The
New York Times printed the Pentagon Papers and won 6 to 3 at the Supreme Court. A
free press did its job. A party with a spine did its job. The Republic survived the collision.
Fifty-two years later, that party is gone. What replaced it is, in this writer’s opinion,
the longest running confidence game ever worked on the American public.
THE ENABLER’S DICTIONARY
Every con needs confederates. Ours hold committee gavels, and they have built
themselves a vocabulary. “I’d rather work within the party. I did what I
thought was best under the circumstances. I don’t comment on social
media posts. I’d have to see the whole quote.”
Translated back into English: I saw it. I know exactly what it was. And I
want the endorsement more than I want the oath. That is not prudence.
That is a lookout at the door while the safe is emptied.
AND WHEN THEY REFUSE
Ask Mike Pence, whose reward for following the Constitution on one Wednesday in
January was a mob chanting for his hanging while a President suggested the mob had
a point.
Ask Marjorie Taylor Greene, the most devoted MAGA voice in the House until she
demanded the Epstein files be opened. She was rebranded “Marjorie Traitor Greene,”
promised a primary challenge, and resigned her seat on January 5. Ask Thomas Massie,
Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace, who signed that same petition.
Ask John McCain, told he was no war hero and insulted after his death. Ask Liz
Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Mitt Romney, Jeff Flake, Bob Corker, Justin Amash. Ask
Chris Krebs, fired for saying the election was secure. Ask Brad Raffensperger and Rusty
Bowers, who simply counted. Of the ten House Republicans who voted to impeach,
eight were gone within two years.
Every one a Republican. Not one accused of stealing a dollar. They were destroyed
for candor, and the survivors watched, learned, and shut up.
That silence is the party’s only real platform. Here is what it buys.
ONE: THE FILES THEY WILL NOT OPEN
Congress passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act;
the President signed it. It forbids withholding any record
for embarrassment, reputational harm or political sensitivity.
Justice blew the deadline, dumped three million
pages a month late, and still sits on millions more. In
June a federal judge found the administration had likely
violated the Act. Not one Republican leader will say the
word all.
TWO: THE PARDON FOR THE
NARCO-PRESIDENT
Juan Orlando Hernández, president of Honduras,
convicted in a New York courtroom of conspiring to push
cocaine into this country, which prosecutors counted
in the hundreds of tons, and sentenced to 45 years. He
served about eighteen months. Pardoned December 1,
2025; out the same day. This administration blows up
boats in the name of the drug war and freed the biggest
trafficker it ever convicted.
THREE: THE AFFORDABILITY
THAT WENT SOMEWHERE ELSE
Through June, consumer prices were up 3.5% on the
year, gasoline up 26.7%, electricity up 4.0%, against wage
growth of 3.2%. The one ledger that soared belongs to
the family in the White House: a 927-page disclosure
reporting nearly $1.2 billion in crypto income for 2025,
with roughly $1.55 billion pulled out of World Liberty
Financial while outside token holders lost an estimated
$674 million.
FOUR: THE HEALTH CARE THEY LET EXPIRE
Congress let the enhanced premium tax credits lapse
on December 31, 2025. Marketplace premiums rose
roughly 26% for 2026, and KFF estimates the amount
subsidized enrollees pay themselves more than doubled,
from about $888 a year to $1,904. Analysts put the
added uninsured in the millions. There was no replacement
plan. There has never been a replacement plan.
FIVE: THE FARM ECONOMY THEY CALL A WIN
USDA forecasts 2026 net farm income at $153.4 billion,
a fourth straight year of pressure, while farm sector
debt hits a record $624.7 billion and interest expense a
record $33 billion, about $90 million a day. Chapter 12
farm bankruptcies rose 46% in 2025. Against a 25 million
tonne soybean pledge, Chinese buyers had booked
roughly 200,000 tonnes. Our farmers are being paid in
bridge payments instead of markets.
SIX: THE TWENTY-FOUR HOURS
He promised to end the war in Ukraine in twenty-four
hours. Nineteen months into this term, the truces last thirty-
two hours at a time and men are still dying in the mud.
SEVEN: THE BILL YOUR CHILDREN INHERIT
$39.8 trillion in federal debt, about $286,000 per
household. Interest on that debt now costs more than
the entire defense budget. The party of fiscal responsibility
ran it up, then named a ballroom after itself.
Image created with AI.
IF YOU WANT YOUR FAMILY SAFE FROM DRUGS………………………………….DON’T VOTE REPUBLICAN.
IF YOU WANT THE FILES OPENED AND THE PREDATORS NAMED………DON’T VOTE REPUBLICAN.
IF YOU WANT REAL SOLUTIONS IN HEALTH CARE……………………………….DON’T VOTE REPUBLICAN.
IF YOU WANT HIGHER FARM INCOME…………………………………………………..DON’T VOTE REPUBLICAN.
IF YOU WANT MONEY LEFT OVER FOR A HOME OF YOUR OWN…………..DON’T VOTE REPUBLICAN.
IF YOU WANT AN END TO FOREIGN WARS…………………………………………….DON’T VOTE REPUBLICAN.
IF YOU WANT THE DEBT BROUGHT DOWN…………………………………………..DON’T VOTE REPUBLICAN.
State house. County board. School board. Congress. There is no local exception to a national loyalty oath.
AND BEFORE YOU DECIDE IT DOESN’T MATTER, ASK YOURSELF ONE MORE QUESTION:
CAN YOU STILL AFFORD THE GAS TO DRIVE TO THE POLLS?
IF YOU REALLY WANT TO MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN
THEN DON’T VOTE REPUBLICAN.
“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.