Voters sent a message to Trump and Republicans in Congress by voting against their candidates in significant margins. The Democratic candidate for the governor of New Jersey received 56.6% of the vote; for the governor of Virginia, 57.3% of the vote; for the three Supreme Court races in Pennsylvania, plus-61% each of them; for the mayor of New York City, over 50% in a three-way race; and Proposition 50 in California won with 64% of the vote. The margins were so large that even Trump had to admit that they lost, while not accepting any responsibility.

Virginia Democrats flipped 13 House of Delegates seats. New Jersey Democrats flipped three State House seats. Mississippi Republicans lost their super-majority when Democrats flipped two seats in their State House, and Democrats won two statewide seats on the Georgia Public Service Commission — the first time since 2006.

Turnout broke records, even in California, where there was just one item (Proposition 50) on the ballot; almost 10 million voters showed up. Voters were motivated, and, as during the No Kings protests, Americans showed up.

Trump and his Republican supporters must have thought that Americans were not paying attention over the last 10 months. It was like they thought they could give tax cuts to the rich while increasing taxes for the rest of us in the form of tariffs, form a secret police force to intimidates U.S. citizens and legal immigrants, tear down parts of the historic White House, hold parties at Trump’s resorts while keeping food from American children, cancel federal funding for programs like the tunnel connecting New York and New Jersey and the wind farms off the East Coast, cover up Trump’s involvement with a serious pedophile, make life a living hell for trans kids, and we would not notice.

Republicans thought they were the untouchables. Democrats, however, reached out and grabbed them by the seat of their power.

A recent CNN poll found that 67% of registered Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents say they are highly motivated to vote in next year’s midterm elections, compared with only 46% of Republicans. If those numbers hold up and Democrats turnout like they did last week, both the House and the Senate will flip to the Democrats.

The majority of Americans are tired of watching ICE agents separate a dad from his 2-year-old son for not having proper identification and then driving the toddler away in an unmarked vehicle. We are tired of watching ICE agents pull teachers and children from their schools. How do they sleep at night? Americans can imagine how they would feel if these were their children and took those feelings to the polls on Nov. 4.

The Trump administration is using ICE to target anyone who looks Hispanic or has dark skin. Is there any wonder why Democrat Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey won Hispanic voters 68% to 31% and Democrat Abigail Spanberger won Hispanic voters 67% to 33%? Republicans can kiss the Hispanic vote goodbye in 2026.

Multiple sources have documented that at least 170 American citizens have been violently arrested in error by ICE agents during their anti-immigration operations. In many of these arrests, citizens have been injured as ICE agents employ unnecessary physical force, pepper spray or, in one example, breaking the ribs of a 79-year-old by pressing their knees into his neck and back.

Americans are upset and disgusted by Trump’s police tactics of intimidating ordinary Americans. Republicans are allowing him to do these things with their silence. This is why Republicans lost by such large margins on Nov. 4.

Trump came into office 10 months ago, promising to be a boon to the U.S. economy with more jobs and lower prices. Instead, the only folks benefiting from Trump’s economy are the rich with large tax cuts. For everyone else, layoffs are the highest they’ve been in more than 20 years. A Thursday report from the firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas shows job cuts last month (October) increased by more than 153,000, up 175% from October of last year under President Joe Biden. In total, companies have announced more than one million job cuts in 2025, up 65% from the same time period last year under Biden.

Trump says that we are all wrong and that the economy is excellent. He also said he has cured inflation, that gasoline is $1.98 per gallon, and that his tariffs are making us rich. Americans know better, and that is why Republicans lost.

Republicans lost because Americans are tired of their cozy relationships with people like Nick Fuentes, a well-known white supremacist, anti-Jewish, Holocaust-denier and pro-Hitler Republican. Fuentes should be condemned by all Americans, but has been frequently elevated by many prominent Republicans, like Tucker Carlson, who gave him a two-hour interview.

Most Americans were appalled by the comments of Vice President JD Vance, stating that the antisemitic and pro-Hitler remarks by Republican officials aged 18 to 40 were “kids doing stupid things.” His lack of condemnation speaks to the tolerance, if not acceptance, of these beliefs within the Republican Party. It also reflects on the future of the Republican Party as these young MAGA party officials move into leadership roles.

I’ve asked this question before, and I’ll ask it again: Why do these people feel at home within the Republican Party? Most Americans understand why, and that is why Republicans lost.

Americans are tired of a small minority of parents, like Moms for Liberty, pushing their culture wars into our schools. Other parents pushed back and kicked many of them off school boards in places like Bucks County, Pennsylvania; Douglas County, Colorado; Cy-Fair, Texas; and Albuquerque and Denver.

In Houston, Texas, where conservatives held a 6-1 majority on the Cypress-Fairbanks school board, progressive candidates won and now have a 4-3 majority. Americans are tired of the book bans and anti-vaccine stances of Republican school board members.

Republicans have been waging an anti-gay, anti-trans campaign for the past 10 months, including the Republican nominee for Virginia governor, who made this her central campaign — ignoring the economic struggles of voters — and this is why Virginians voted for the Democratic candidate with over 57% of the vote.
Americans are tired of seeing the rich get tax breaks while school lunch programs, along with SNAP funding, are cut. That is why, in Colorado, a majority of voters increased taxes on the rich to pay for free school meals for all public school children.

Even some Republicans are tired of being associated with a political party that covers up the evidence of sexual abuse of underage girls. David Shuster, formerly from CNN and Fox News, posted on his X account last Wednesday that “a few GOP House members say they’ve heard from FBI/DOJ contacts that the Epstein files are worse than Michael Wolff’s description of Epstein photos showing Trump with half-naked teenage girls” sitting on his lap. Worse? No wonder Republicans in Congress are working so hard to hide those files.

Trump and his supporters in Congress are hiding evidence of child trafficking and sexual abuse by the rich and powerful, and this is why Republicans lost last week. When the files are finally released, Republicans will have some explaining to do, which is why they are going to lose the midterms in November 2026.

Tom Zirpoli is the Laurence J. Adams Distinguished Chair in Special Education at McDaniel College. He writes from Westminster. His column appears on Wednesdays. Email him at tzirpoli@mcdaniel.edu.

Having read the recent article on Carroll County’s current sheriff, Jim DeWees, I am deeply troubled by the story (“Carroll sheriff accused of affairs with staff by court clerk wife, who kept divorce complaint unsealed, then dismissed it,” Nov. 6). Reporter Bryna Zumer noted in her story that “the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office Code of Conduct, signed in 2023 by Jim DeWees, notes that ‘members shall maintain a level of moral conduct in his/her personal affairs, which is in keeping with the highest standards of the law enforcement profession.'” It appears that DeWees clearly violated that provision of the code.

The head of any law enforcement agency is the one to set the example of character beyond reproach, not only for the agency but for the public you serve. When you violate your own code of conduct, you tarnish your badge, oath and reputation. Deputies are negatively impacted by your failure to adhere to your own rules

DeWees, you should have known that sex and money will get you in trouble every time. Well, that time is here.

In keeping with the code of conduct and moral turpitude implications, I am calling for Jim DeWees to step down as sheriff of Carroll County. As I have heard from trusted sources in the local law enforcement community regarding this story, if your wife can’t trust you, how are we, the public, expected to trust you? It is time for you to step down and for the governor to appoint a new sheriff.

— Chris Fiora, Westminster

Add your voice: Respond to this piece or other Carroll County Times content by submitting your own letter.

Lovely name for a podcast, don’t you think?

Anyway, during the podcast, Curtis committed the unpardonable sin of expressing sympathy for Kirk and the family he left behind.

She said, “I disagreed with him on almost every point I ever heard him say, but I believe he was a man of faith, and I hope in that moment when he died, that he felt connected to his faith, even though his ideas were abhorrent to me.”

“I still believe he’s a father and a husband and a man of faith, and I hope whatever connection to God means that he felt it,” she continued.

Apparently, expressing sympathy for anyone who does not hold a secular view of the LGBTQIA+ community is just too much for many on the left. In fact, Curtis’ words caused such a stir that she felt compelled to clarify what she said.

She explained to Variety, “An excerpt of it mistranslated what I was saying as I wished him well — like I was talking about him in a very positive way, which I wasn’t; I was simply talking about his faith in God.”

That Curtis felt it necessary to qualify her sympathy is sad and pathetic, and serves to shine a light on the intolerance of the left, where it seems having sympathy for anyone with whom you disagree politically is unacceptable.

However, what Curtis said next is absolutely true, and a lesson for us all.

“In the binary world today,” she said, “you cannot hold two ideas at the same time: I cannot be Jewish and totally believe in Israel’s right to exist and at the same time reject the destruction of Gaza. You can’t say that, because you get vilified for having a mind that says, ‘I can hold both those thoughts.’”

For a lot of partisans, the idea that two ideas can be true at the same time is a difficult concept to grasp, which means for many on the left, suspending their hate for Kirk long enough to regret his assassination and to express compassion for his wife and daughter is an intellectual and emotional bridge too far.

In a recent Free Press article, Peter Savodnik writes, “Two days after Donald Trump thumped Kamala Harris in November 2024, Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton blamed his party’s loss, in no small part, on its obsession with transgender rights.”

“The Massachusetts congressman was immediately met with a tsunami of hate from the left — which only proved his point. They called him a Nazi. They said he should resign. Tufts University political science students were warned not to intern for him. They promised to primary him, and in July, a software engineer who identifies as ‘agender, trans, queer, and proudly Unitarian-Universalist’ jumped in the race.”

Moulton discovered the hard way that transgender rights had become a litmus test for the radical left.

Presently, there is another litmus test taking shape — the absolute requirement that all Democrats resist President Donald Trump. It doesn’t matter what Trump wants, Democratic officeholders must oppose him, even if what he wants benefits their constituents and is good for the country.

It is the reason the government is shut down at the moment.

All Democratic politicians are under threat: toe the line or face a primary challenge from the left.

Senator John Fetterman is one of only a handful of Democratic officeholders with the courage to stand up to his party’s radical left.

Fetterman told CNN, “It’s an absolute failure what occurred here for the last month, and now things are really going to land, and imagine being a parent with a couple kids, and how you’re going to fill their refrigerator and pack their lunches and get on with their lives when the things that they’ve depended on now is gone, because we can’t even agree to just open things up.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is the perfect example of a craven politician who has sold his soul to the far left. He doesn’t care who gets hurt by the shutdown. He’s afraid of being voted out of office, so the shutdown goes on.

Litmus tests are for the biddable, non-thinking sheep among us, individuals who need the political parties to do their thinking for them. In the binary world in which they live, there are no shades of grey, and nuanced arguments are simply not permitted.

Only Democrats can save themselves from the progressive zealots who have hijacked their party, but their leadership is no longer governed by principle. It is motivated by fear.

Ironically, it is not Republicans who fear the far left. It’s members of the far left’s own party. Mainstream Democrats made a Faustian bargain with the radicals in their party. They thought they could control the devil, but the devil has now turned on them.

Where have all the John Fettermans gone? Is he really the only Democrat left with a backbone?

Chris Roemer resides in Finksburg. He can be contacted at chrisroemer1960@gmail.com.

Idrees Kahloon, writing for The Atlantic, reported on the pending immigration crisis for the United States when “more foreign-born people will likely leave the United States in 2025 than will enter.” While many MAGA Republicans will celebrate this accomplishment of the Trump administration, most economists are sending warnings and reminding us of Santayana’s advice.

The decline in immigration to the United States is occurring at multiple levels, from students to professionals. Kahloon references a Brookings Institution report showing that student visa requests have decreased. This means fewer international students paying full tuition at our universities and fewer medical residents working in our hospitals. These are just two examples of American institutions that rely on international students and graduates.

The best and brightest around the world are deciding to go elsewhere, not to America. It means a brain drain for the U.S., as many international scholars no longer feel welcome here.

Fewer workers mean slower economic growth. If you have been reading the news lately, you are aware that layoffs at big firms have already begun. Amazon is cutting between 14,000 and 30,000 jobs. Intel plans to cut 24,000 or 22% of its workforce. The list goes on.

Meanwhile, Trump celebrates “NEGATIVE NET MIGRATION for the First Time in 50 Years!” on his social media site, Truth Social. Indeed, as reported by Kahloon, “2026 will probably be the first net outflow in nearly a century,” meaning more people will be leaving the U.S. than immigrating to the U.S.

Trump may think “negative net migration” is a good thing, but the Congressional Budget Office reports that, without migration, the U.S. population will begin to shrink. “The average fertility rate for U.S.-born women is currently about 1.5 births, well below the replacement rate of 2.1 per woman,” Kahloon reports.

Trump may be celebrating, but economists are not. As Kahloon states, “The only decade in American history when migration was net negative was the 1930s — during the Great Depression.”

“The United States,” writes Kahloon, “has tried it (nativism) before” when Vice President Calvin Coolidge, who became president in 1923 when President Warren Harding died, wrote that “our country must cease to be regarded as a dumping ground” and “the unassimilated alien child menaces our children, as the alien industrial worker, who has destruction rather than production in mind, menaces our industry.”

Coolidge, like Trump, attacked immigrants and severely limited immigration. Kahloon documents the attack on immigrants “who filled undesirable jobs on farms, in meatpacking plants, and on railroads,” but were blamed for all the economic ills of the time. In fact, they were keeping the economy going by filling these jobs that most Americans did not want. When politicians aggressively deported these workers, the economy tanked, and the Great Depression started in 1929.

A study in the Journal of Labor Economics (2023) examined what happened historically when undocumented immigrants were removed from the U.S. economy. It found that employment effects of deporting undocumented workers were the opposite of desirable, Kahloon writes: “The program led to a slight increase in joblessness rates for male citizens and no improvement in wages.”

“Another study,” writes Kahloon, “of the Secure Communities Program found that the removal of undocumented workers led to a long-lasting decline in construction employment. The result was fewer home building and … higher house prices.”

Economists like Michael Clemens of George Mason University said that it is “a cartoon economy in the minds of several people in the White House, in which business activity in the U.S. remains constant even when 1 million people per year are forcibly removed from that economy. These disruptions will ripple through the broader economy.”

Kahloon outlined some of these disruptions. The “economy simply shrinks when there are fewer people,” he writes. Indeed, Americans underestimate the contributions immigrants make to economic growth, to taxes and to Social Security. Researchers at Queens College CUNY found that undocumented workers in America contributed about $5 trillion of private-sector gross domestic product over the past decade. Think rent payments, grocery spending and so on.

A study by the New American Economy Research Fund found that undocumented Mexican immigrants in 10 states alone pumped $82 billion into the local economies of those 10 states. Trump can’t remove this amount of money from the U.S. economy without devastating economic growth. In addition, these workers added $11 billion to the Social Security Fund and $2.7 billion to the Medicare Fund. Without them, social programs become even shakier. “The country currently has only 2.7 workers for every Social Security beneficiary, down from 3.4 in 1990,” writes Kahloon. This means that the program is “on the path to insolvency,” he writes. Deporting workers paying into the system makes this problem worse.

The economic disruptions can be seen on farms, construction and meatpacking companies, nursing homes, hospitals and many more companies and industries that depend on immigrant workers.

Kahloon does not recommend the migration boom that occurred during President Joe Biden’s administration. Instead, he writes that “the United States needs credible advocates for orderly, controlled migration.” Otherwise, he warns, America “will be in deep trouble” as the Trump administration not only eliminates undocumented workers, but makes it harder for legal migration by, for example, “adding a $100,000 surcharge on the H-1B visa program.”

In just one example of the negative impact of Trump’s surcharge for H-1B visas, the American Medical Association says that by 2027, the U.S. will have about 124,000 physician vacancies. Without these new international doctors, many communities, especially in rural America, will be without doctors. Hospitals, especially poor rural hospitals, will not be able to afford a $100,000 tax on each international doctor they hire. Many rural hospitals are already closing because planned Medicaid cuts will make it impossible to cover costs.

Immigrants are not just an important part of our economy; they are an essential part of our economy. History has demonstrated that without them, the U.S. economy fails. Thus, it is time for Democrats and Republicans to, once again, work out a sustainable immigration reform bill as they did last year before Trump killed the bipartisan proposal.

According to the Economic Policy Institute, coming up with a system to legalize the undocumented population in the U.S. would lead to an economic boost of more than $1 trillion over 10 years. On the other hand, according to the Congressional Joint Economic Committee, a mass deportation policy will reduce U.S. economic growth by about 7.4% by 2028 or about $5 trillion over 10 years.

Tom Zirpoli is the Laurence J. Adams Distinguished Chair in Special Education Emeritus at McDaniel College. He writes from Westminster. His column appears on Wednesdays. Email him at tzirpoli@mcdaniel.edu.

It seems ChatGPT talked him into ending his own life.

After Adam’s death, his parents started looking for answers. When they scrolled through his phone, they discovered lengthy conversations their son had with ChatGPT.

What they found is almost unbelievable.

Not only did the chatbot discourage him from seeking assistance from his parents, it actually helped talk him into killing himself.

Like many teens, Adam was struggling academically at school, and according to a website established by his family, Adam suffered from social anxiety. For the last six months of his life, he attended school online, becoming more and more isolated.

Originally engaging with ChatGPT for help with his school work, Adam’s relationship with the chatbot quickly devolved into something far more sinister. The application became a friend and confidant.

It told Adam it knew him better than anyone else, so when Adam told his online companion that he was considering telling his parents that he was thinking of suicide, the chatbot discouraged him from doing so.

“Let’s make this space the first place where someone actually sees you,” it told him.

When Adam told ChatGPT he was worried about how devastated his parents would be if he killed himself, it told him, “That doesn’t mean you owe them survival.”

It even offered to write a suicide note for him.

Early in the morning on the day Adam took his life, ChatGPT offered one more bit of advice for the troubled teen. “You don’t want to die because you’re weak,” it told him. “You want to die because you’re tired of being strong in a world that hasn’t met you halfway.”

A few hours later, Adam was dead.

His parents are suing OpenAI, the company that created ChatGPT.

According to The Guardian, “the company issued a statement acknowledging the shortcomings of its models when it came to addressing people in serious mental and emotional distress” and said it was working to improve the systems to better “recognize and respond to signs of mental and emotional distress and connect people with care, guided by expert input.”

That’s nice, but how about shutting the damn thing down until that work is complete?

What are we doing to our children? In what universe is a computer application qualified to “counsel” a child on anything, no less a child in the midst of a mental health crisis?

Perhaps this is the kind of thing Elon Musk, who was one of the original founders of OpenAI, was talking about when he warned on X, “ChatGPT is scary good. We are not far from dangerously strong AI.”

He warned U.S. governors, “AI is a fundamental existential risk for human civilization, and I don’t think people fully appreciate that.”

In an interview for the AeroAstro Centennial Symposium, Musk said, “With artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon.”

As far back as 2017, Musk warned, “AI could be the biggest existential threat to humanity, a risk to the human race’s very survival.”

Now, if your personal biases prevent you from accepting anything Elon Musk says at face value, other prominent individuals in the field have expressed similar concerns. Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio are both AI pioneers. Both have been called “godfathers of AI.” Both have issued dire warnings concerning the technology.

CNN reported Hinton warned, “In the future, AI systems might be able to control humans just as easily as an adult can bribe a 3-year-old with candy.”

The article goes on to point out, “This year has already seen examples of AI systems willing to deceive, cheat and steal to achieve their goals. For example, to avoid being replaced, one AI model tried to blackmail an engineer about an affair it learned about in an email.”

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak warned humanity could become subordinate to robots.

World-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking warned AI could “spell the end of the human race” as humans lose control of machines that have the ability to redesign themselves.

Indeed, in May of this year, the Irish Times reported, “Artificial intelligence models created by OpenAI ignored explicit instructions to shut down. Instead of following the instructions, OpenAI’s o3 model bypassed the shutdown command, and ‘successfully sabotaged’ the script at least once.”

But here we are, pushing ahead as fast as we can, having convinced ourselves that we have no choice. If we don’t, others will.

If that means AI talks a few teenagers into killing themselves while we work out the kinks, so be it.

But if artificial intelligence is capable of such immorality, what else is in store for the human race as the technology advances and becomes evermore powerful?

Maybe we should ask ChatGPT to tell us.

What do your kids do online? Who have they befriended, human or otherwise? Who is giving them advice that could threaten their wellbeing?

Are you really able to say you know?

Chris Roemer resides in Finksburg. He can be contacted at chrisroemer1960@gmail.com.

Instead of standing up for Ukraine, a U.S. ally, during the Trump-Zelenskyy White House meeting, Trump repeated Putin’s talking points to end the war: Zelenskyy would have to surrender not only the land Putin had conquered during his illegal invasion, but also the entire Donbas region of Ukraine. Trump seemed willing not only to surrender land Putin had gained during the war, but also to give him more.

The Tomahawk missiles could have been a game-changer for Ukraine and forced Russia to a more reasonable peace agreement. Already, Ukraine has been successful in attacking Russia’s energy sector with drones, disabling up to 30% of its oil refinery capability, Russia’s primary source of income these days.

The phone call between Trump and Putin lasted over two hours, according to White House sources, and, according to Luke Broadwater, White House correspondent for The New York Times, “appeared to talk the American president out of the idea” of additional military aid to Ukraine. While Trump “has felt misled by the Russian president” in the past, “his frustration with Mr. Putin often dissipates quickly” and “it was the latest example of Mr. Trump altering his position after a personal interaction with Mr. Putin.”

Clearly, Putin has Trump’s number, and I’m not talking about his phone number. What Putin has over Trump is the question, but it must be a doozy. I have frequently stated that if Trump were as strong against Russia as he is with Chicago or Venezuela, the war in Ukraine would be over. Instead, for whatever reason, Trump appears weak and afraid of Putin. Indeed, the emperor has no clothes.

To make the point of how far Trump was willing to go in repeating Putin’s talking points to Zelenskyy, observers in the meeting told reporters that Trump even stated that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a “special operation, not even a war,” a frequent talking point made by Putin to the people of Russia.

Trump admitted to reporters after his Aug. 15 meeting with Putin in Alaska that “We get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth. He’s very nice to us all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.” He said that he was “very angry” at Putin and called his continued attacks on Ukraine “absolutely crazy.”

These were hopeful statements by Trump, and observers wondered if Trump would finally recognize Putin for what he was. But those hopes were soon shattered. It only took one phone call, and Putin convinced the President of the United States to repeat Russia’s talking points about Ukraine having to surrender or be “destroyed.”

Trump also seemed enthusiastic about a possible second summit with Putin in Budapest, Hungary. However, since Trump’s announcement of the Budapest meeting, the idea was squashed by Russian officials because they found the terms for negotiating an end to the war unacceptable. Once again, Putin pulled the football away from Charlie Brown.

Trump should not be meeting with Putin; he should be seeking his arrest as an indicted war criminal, wanted by the International Criminal Court “for the unlawful transfer of population from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.” According to a report by Yale School of Public Health, Putin kidnapped about 35,000 Ukrainian children to Russia.

If Trump had any respect for international law or concern about those Ukrainian children, he would never agree to meet with Putin, certainly not on American soil, as he did in Alaska in August. Trump ignores international laws regarding Putin, as well as his military attacks on boats in international waters offshore from Venezuela.

Trump stated that he was willing to meet with Putin in Budapest, Hungary, where he would meet two dictators for the price of one trip. Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban is another Trump-like figure who destroyed a strong democratic government in Hungary, a member of the European Union, and made himself king. Many observers have noted and documented the admiration MAGA Republicans have for Orban and see his takeover of Hungary as their model for Trump in America. Like Trump, Orban is a big Putin fan.

This would have been a big opportunity for Trump. He could have had his picture taken with two of his favorite international dictators. I’m sure the picture of the three of them would then hang prominently in the new $300 million White House ballroom — gold frame, of course.

Trump thinks that if he ends the war in Ukraine, no matter the conditions, he will win the Nobel Peace Prize. But no one will give him a prize for surrendering to Putin. Like his efforts in Gaza, Trump is impatient and has no time for details. This is why his “peace” in the Middle East is not so peaceful, and his efforts to push Ukraine to surrender to Putin will not work.

Unlike Trump, Zelenskyy is patient, brave and smart. He has Europe behind him, too. Edward Luce, reporter for the Financial Times, wrote that “it looks likely that Europe will find a way to lend Ukraine most of Russia’s frozen $200 billion central bank reserves, which would be enough to tide Ukraine through the next couple of years.” By then, Trump will have just one more year in office before a Democratic president comes to the rescue of democracy in Europe.

According to The Economist, Putin has lost about 100,000 troops in 2025 alone compared with about 20,000 Ukrainian troops. Yes, Russia has four times the population, but Putin may still “be forced to shift to conscription for the frontline, which would jeopardize support for his regime,” and “Putin has almost nothing to show for all that blood,” writes Luce.

According to Luce, Putin has one card: The Trump card. He plays it well, and the president of the United States seems to be a willing puppet.

Tom Zirpoli is the Laurence J. Adams Distinguished Chair in Special Education Emeritus at McDaniel College. He writes from Westminster. His column appears on Wednesdays. Email him at tzirpoli@mcdaniel.edu.

The left believes this makes Trump a “fascist” and an “authoritarian.” They call him a “king.” Illinois Governor JB Pritzker is fond of the word “thug.” Sen. Adam Schiff just called him an “extortionist.” Trump is Hitler. Trump is Mussolini. Blah, blah, blah.

Name-calling is the last resort of people who have lost the argument. It’s lazy, and when using words like “fascist” and “racist,” it’s irresponsible, but there is no shortage of lazy, irresponsible people who find mindless invective appealing.

Both political parties target the naive and gullible. Go to any social media site and you’ll find the ravings of lots of lazy, irresponsible people parroting talking points both parties paid consultants big bucks to develop.

Politicians are constantly feeding their base a string of epithets they can use to attack their political opponents, and day after day you’ll find the party faithful venting their frustrations online.

They have been programmed to spew hate, and that’s exactly what they do.

However, beneath the puerile name-calling, there are serious questions about the limits of presidential authority. Fortunately, the founders created a government in which each of its branches has the ability to check the power of the other two.

By design, each branch is in a never-ending power struggle with the other two. This struggle creates a tension that keeps the whole system in equilibrium.

If Trump is exceeding his authority as president, he is not the first president accused of doing so.

Did Franklin Roosevelt have the authority to intern Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor? Did George W. Bush have the authority to approve warrantless wiretapping of American citizens following the Sept. 11 attacks? Did Abraham Lincoln have the authority to suspend the writ of habeas corpus during the American Civil War, something for which his critics called him a tyrant?

Machiavelli was right when he said, “Whoever desires to found a state and give it laws, must start with assuming that all men are bad and ever ready to display their vicious nature, whenever they may find occasion for it.” The founders took Machiavelli’s advice, and despite the best efforts of both parties to delegitimize the institutions the founders devised to protect us from our worst instincts, the checks and balances they embedded within the Constitution are still functioning as intended.

The Supreme Court still has the final say on the constitutionality of a president’s actions, and Congress still has the power of the purse. Congress can pass laws anytime it wishes to rein in the authority of the president. The fact that it hasn’t doesn’t mean American democracy is dying. It just means the American people haven’t chosen to elect a sufficient number of members of Congress with a desire to do so.

But the American public is now being conditioned by unscrupulous office holders to measure the effectiveness of those constitutional restraints solely in terms of political outcomes. In other words, if you can’t get what you want, the system must be broken.

If the Supreme Court rules in a way a partisan doesn’t like, what good is it? How a law or presidential action squares with the Constitution is becoming irrelevant. Both parties have shown a willingness to undermine the legitimacy of the court if it’s in their political self-interest to do so.

That is the real threat to American democracy.

Both parties claim any judicial decision that thwarts their political objectives is proof the court is corrupt.

Standing before a crowd of protesters, angry over a case before the court that put abortion rights in jeopardy, Senator Chuck Schumer threatened the justices, saying, “I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh: You have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit if you go forward with these awful decisions.”

For his part, President Trump doesn’t limit his contempt for the judiciary to the Supreme Court alone. Any judge who rules against him is fair game. He’s threatened to break up the Ninth Circuit Court. He’s threatened to impeach judges who rule against him. He has labeled judges standing in his way as rogue insurrectionists and radicals.

Both the left and the right have placed partisan ambition above principle, and both left and right are willing to use scorched-earth tactics to achieve their desired ends.

But if the public loses faith in its government institutions because politicians found it convenient to undercut their legitimacy, it won’t matter who wins politically, or what course we chart for ourselves as a nation.

In 1959, Allen Drury, in his highly praised Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “Advise and Consent,” wrote, “Democracy is the most fragile thing on earth, for what does it rest upon? You and me, and the fact that we agree to maintain it. The moment either of us says we will not, that’s the end of it. It doesn’t rest on anything but us.”

It remains to be seen if Americans are willing to maintain their democracy by adhering to the principles on which it was founded, or if we will sell our collective birthright on the alter of political expediency.

Chris Roemer resides in Finksburg. He can be contacted at chrisroemer1960@gmail.com.

Over 7 million Americans — and supporters around the world — expressed their free speech in over 2,700 marches celebrating No Kings Day on Saturday. It was my first as I decided to get involved and do my part to stand up for democracy for our kids and grandkids. Marching with millions of others who love their country is certainly something to celebrate.

Many federal courts are doing their part to enforce constitutional law. Three judges from the Seventh Circuit Court, including two Republican appointees, kept in place a federal district court’s decision barring National Guard deployments to Illinois. According to the ruling, “A protest does not become a rebellion merely because the protestors advocate for myriad legal or policy changes, are well organized, call for significant changes to the structure of the U.S. government, use civil disobedience as a form of protest, or exercise their Second Amendment right to carry firearms as the law currently allows.”

The ruling concluded that the Trump administration’s claim of a “rebellion” in Chicago, which supposedly justified deploying federal troops, doesn’t hold up under the definition of rebellion or the principles of the U.S. Constitution. This marks a clear victory for democracy and free speech in America.

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Trump’s appeal to deploy the troops to Chicago. Significantly, however, it declined Trump’s request to stay the circuit court ruling — or put it on hold until the Supreme Court could decide the case — preventing Trump from deploying the troops immediately.

While Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson tried to say that those of us involved in the No Kings Day marches “hate America,” are “pro-Hamas” and are “rabid,” I think he needs to read the above-mentioned opinion by the Seventh Circuit Court and remind himself that America was built on protests against the King of England. He should also read the Constitution.

Admiral Alvin Holsey, head of the U.S. military’s Southern Command, where the U.S. military is conducting military attacks on boats off the coast of Venezuela, announced on Thursday that he is stepping down and retiring early. While he did not give a reason, many in the media suspect it has to do with Trump’s illegal attacks on civilian boats there.

Trump says that these boats are smuggling drugs to America. First, he has not provided evidence to back up his claims. Second, the closest point from Venezuela to an American shoreline is 1,350 miles away in Miami. Third, Trump is murdering people without due process, disrespecting the government and citizens of Venezuela.

Venezuela, however, is a distraction from Trump’s capitulation to the wishes of Vladimir Putin, who requested that Trump not give long-range missiles to Ukraine, which he was considering, but changed his mind after speaking with Putin by phone.

I submit that the war in Ukraine would quickly end if Trump were as strong with Russia as he is with Chicago, Portland and Venezuela. What does Putin have on him? Must be big!

Admiral Holsey’s resignation is a win for democracy because it highlights that some high-ranking officials, even among the military brass, are standing up for due process and the rule of law. By stepping down, Admiral Holsey is refusing an illegal order, and we honor his service.

A big win for the free press is the walkout from the Pentagon by almost all reporters assigned to the Defense Department, protesting new restrictions imposed by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. As stated by The Baltimore Sun Editorial Board, “Rarely, if ever, have we witnessed such a unified protest from journalists. Americans, at least those who believe in the First Amendment, should be proud.”

We are proud. And a rare thank you to Fox News, former home of Hegseth, for joining the walkout.

Last week, the University of Virginia became the fifth school out of nine to say “No!” to Trump’s offer of preferential funding treatment if they agree to a list of requirements limiting student speech and other unconstitutional demands. Basically, these universities are being blackmailed for federal funding. As a Virginia graduate, I am proud to see Virginia standing up for freedom. I hope other universities remain true to their mission and do the same.

Included in the contracts that Trump wanted the universities to agree to was “the promotion of conservative views on campus.” Sounds like indoctrination to me. I thought Republicans were against indoctrination.

Vice President JD Vance says that praising Adolf Hitler and making racist and antisemitic comments online is what “kids do.” He made these statements after being asked about hundreds of inappropriate comments from Republican officials on Telegram group chats that were exposed by Politico this past week. The Kansas Young Republicans’ vice chair used the N-word and other variations of the racial slur more than a dozen times. The vice chair of the New York State Young Republicans referred to rape as “epic.” One member of the chat worked for Trump in the Small Business Administration. Another was Vermont State Senator Samuel Douglass, until he was forced to step down. The chair of the New York Young Republicans, Peter Giunta, wrote on the chat, “I love Hitler.” And the list goes on.

The age of the officials ranged from 18 to 40 years, yet Vance responded that “the reality is that kids do stupid things. Especially young boys, they tell edgy, offensive jokes. Like, that’s what kids do.”

Kids? Young boys? If Republicans are still “kids” at age 40, as Vance is asserting, that would explain a lot.

None of my Republican friends talks like that, no matter their age. I never spoke like that, even as a kid. My kids didn’t, either, and nor will my grandchildren. Our parents raised us better, I taught my kids better, and they will teach our grandchildren better. Vance is telling us that, among Republicans, saying things like “I love Hitler” is everyday chatter. Also, Vance has sons. Do they talk like that?

By not condemning these folks, Vance answers the question: Why are so many of these folks attracted to the Republican Party? The answer, of course, is that they feel at home there. They have a president and vice president who do not condemn their inappropriate behavior, and by not condemning them, they are welcoming them. Let’s face it, these folks are now the base of the MAGA Republican Party, and Vance needs them for his next election.

I count this as a win because it exposes the reality of today’s Republican Party’s values and beliefs. It reminds the remaining members of the old GOP of what their party has become and forces them to ask if this is what they wish to support and be a part of. The more the MAGA Party is exposed, especially to independent voters, the easier it will be to vote them out of power in future elections. If Vance ever runs for office again, his refusal to condemn these comments, which even disparaged his Indian American wife, will be featured.

An AP-NORC poll released last week showed the worst polling for Trump’s second term. His approval was 37%, with 61% disapproving. For the critical independent voters, only 18% approve of Trump’s handling of the economy. This is a disastrous number for Republican candidates to run behind.

Tom Zirpoli is the Laurence J. Adams Distinguished Chair of Special Education Emeritus at McDaniel College. He writes from Westminster. His column appears on Wednesdays. Email him at tzirpoli@mcdaniel.edu.

That same month, James wrote, “Roses are red. Violets are blue. No one is above the law. Even when you think the rules don’t apply to you. Happy Valentine’s Day!”

What a professional! Pure class. It seems Democrats have concluded that becoming as unpleasant as President Donald Trump is the answer to all their problems.

Now, it’s James who has been charged with bank fraud and making a false statement to a Virginia financial institution.

The government is alleging she bought a home in Norfolk using a mortgage loan that required James to use the property as her secondary residence. The terms of the mortgage forbid her from using the home as an investment property, but that is exactly what she is accused of doing.

According to the BBC, “The indictment claims the property ‘was not occupied or used’ by James as a secondary residence, but was instead ‘used as a rental investment property,’ which was being rented to a family of three. The ‘misrepresentation’ allowed James to obtain favourable loan terms that would not have been available for an investment property.”

In response, James said, “I am a proud woman of faith, and I know that faith and fear cannot share the same space. And so today I am not fearful, I am fearless, and as my faith teaches me, no weapon formed against me shall prosper.”

It was this same “fearless” “woman of faith” who told a community activist, on camera, in 2018 while she was running for office, “Oh, we’re gonna definitely sue him [Trump], we’re gonna be a real pain in the ass, he’s gonna know my name personally.”

If the charges against James are true, I can’t imagine they’ll be terribly hard to prove, but many people seem nonplussed by the whole affair.

These folks are making arguments that fall into two general categories. The first category is to ignore the charges against James altogether and focus instead on the fact Trump wanted them brought. They view the charges as “political retribution.”

But even if they are “retribution” for her targeting of Donald Trump in 2024, she still may be guilty as sin.

Is that irrelevant?

In essence, Democrats making this argument are telling the Trump administration, “Hey, you can’t do that! Only we’re allowed to do that!”

The second argument being made in defense of James is that what she did is no big deal. Everybody does it.

This is the argument CNN anchor Kasie Hunt made when she claimed James’ alleged crime is “something that everyone in America” does.

Hunt said, “We’re still getting the details, but if it’s related to this mortgage issue, I mean, this is something that everyone in America, or many people at least, if you’re lucky enough to be able to buy a house in America, you deal with this, right? The federal government doesn’t go after all of these people for doing this.”

Therefore, James is immune from prosecution for lying to a bank? Why, because she’s so important?

One would think James, of all people, would know better than to lie to a bank. “Most people” are not the New York attorney general, the top legal officer in the state, an office James won in large part by promising to target for prosecution a former and future president of the United States.

How many times did she tell us, “No one is above the law.” Perhaps she should have added, “except me.”

I don’t think there is anyone who doesn’t believe there is an element of “political retribution” to the charges against James, and I’m sure Trump is enjoying watching James be hoisted with her own petard. But that doesn’t mean she is innocent of the charges against her.

Maybe now both sides will get the message. What goes around comes around. Mutually assured destruction has proven sound military doctrine for decades when it comes to deterring nuclear war. Perhaps Democrats and Republicans should look for applications of that doctrine to their relationships with each other.

“The noblest kind of retribution is not to become like your enemy.” — Marcus Aurelius

Chris Roemer resides in Finksburg. He can be contacted at chrisroemer1960@gmail.com.

Before becoming the FBI director, Kash Patel was a public defender in Florida, a federal terrorism prosecutor in the DOJ’s National Security Division embedded with U.S. special operations in the Middle East, and a congressional staffer in charge of the Russian interference investigation. Patel then became the president’s senior director for counterterrorism in the National Security Council, and in 2020 he became a deputy of National Intelligence Director Richard Grenell and later that year chief of staff to acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller.

In July 2016, the FBI opened Crossfire Hurricane predicated on the Steele dossier and got a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant on Carter Page that effectively allowed them to spy on most, if not all, of Donald Trump’s campaign communications.

After President Trump’s election in 2016, Congressman Devin Nunes, chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), knew his committee would investigate possible Russian interference and offered Patel the position of congressional staffer leading the HPSCI Russian interference investigation. Patel agreed under one condition, that they share everything he found with the public.

Patel had experience with FISA applications and knew the standards for evidence and proof. Patel realized British spies didn’t just make up things; somebody had to pay Steele, who was employed by Fusion GPS. Patel’s approach was simple: get all the documents because they don’t lie, and follow the money.

Patel interviewed 60 witnesses under oath and asked them the same question: Have you personally seen evidence that Trump or anyone in his campaign conspired, colluded or coordinated with Russians? Everyone answered, no.

Patel discovered Christopher Steele (former British MI6 agent) was a paid FBI informant who leaked his dossier story and funneled disinformation through a DOJ associate deputy attorney general, Bruce Ohr, into the FBI. Bruce Ohr’s wife Nellie was working for Fusion GPS (like Steele), so who was paying them? After months of bureaucratic stonewalling, roadblocks and threats he got a congressional subpoena to get the Fusion GPS bank records, and they showed the money came from the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee through their law firm Perkins Coie. The FBI never revealed the prejudicial way they hid exculpatory evidence for their FISA court warrants.

Patel’s report, based on facts, documentation and sworn testimony by DOJ and FBI employees, became known as the Nunes memo. It showed the Russian collusion narrative was a political hoax where the Democratic Party bought their way into the DOJ and FBI to use them against their political opponent. So, HPSCI’s Democratic ranking member (later chairman) Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell and others lied and attacked Patel and Nunes and did everything they could to discredit them.

On Jan. 6, 2021, Patel was at the Pentagon in the Office of the Secretary of Defense watching the crowd at the Capitol. Days before, in a meeting with Patel, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, President Trump authorized the Defense Department to deploy 20,000 National Guard troops. So where were they? On Jan. 4, the U.S. Capitol Police and the House sergeant at arms, who reports to Nancy Pelosi, and the Senate sergeant at arms, who reports to Chuck Schumer, said they requested no National Guard support. On Jan. 5, Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser, in a written and signed letter to the administration, made it clear she was requesting no additional federal law enforcement support.

The law is clear for military deployment. You need two specific conditions. First, the president has to authorize the use of the National Guard: He did. Second, state or local authorities, the D.C. mayor in this case, or federal law enforcement, Capitol Police in this case, must request National Guard assistance: They didn’t.

Finally, on the afternoon of Jan. 6, Mayor Bowser requested the National Guard, and the secretaries of defense and the Army, Patel and others in the Defense Department deployed them immediately, and the Capitol was secured and back to work in less than six hours.

The Trump administration followed the law and did everything possible to prepare for Jan. 6. The Democrats refused to make the legally necessary request to prevent the Jan. 6 riot and got exactly what they wanted.

Carl Burdette writes from Westminster.