TonyCarper.com

  **First, Do No Harm—Unless They Owe You Money** Before Roger Marshall became a Republican United States senator from Kansas, he practiced obstetrics and gynecology. During his medical career and the collection efforts extending beyond it, he pursued more than 700 lawsuits against patients over unpaid bills. Patients were arrested in 81 of those cases after missing court dates. Behind those numbers were families who had needed medical attention, lacked enough money to settle the resulting bills, and found themselves facing a collection apparatus backed by the power of the courts. One of those patients was a mother named Meischa Zimmerman. Marshall had delivered one of Zimmerman’s children by Caesarean section, leaving her with an outstanding bill of $3,596. After being sued, she agreed to pay fifty dollars a month. Even that amount sometimes exceeded what she could manage while keeping her household afloat. She described choosing between making the payment and paying her electric ...

  UNCLE SAM, MEET DON CON I have finally figured out Donald Trump’s definition of public service: the public supplies the money, and everybody else services his ego. His administration is using taxpayer dollars to air presidential self-promotion, including a recycled campaign advertisement bearing the declaration, “Paid for by the U.S. Government.” Consider the magnificent arrogance required to send Americans a commercial celebrating your leadership and then charge them for watching it. Even the fellow selling counterfeit watches on a street corner generally pays for his own folding table. This little production captures the administration better than a thousand presidential portraits. The government has become a stage, the presidency a merchandising opportunity, and the American taxpayer an involuntary investor in the continuing manufacture of Donald Trump’s greatness. His defenders can dress it up as public information until their tongues develop blisters. A campaign commercial d...

  THE REPUBLICAN RECKONING: NOVEMBER IS ONLY THE BEGINNING I believe Republicans are approaching a devastating election because the country is discovering the difference between being entertained by Donald Trump and being governed by him. Promises of affordable living, effortless prosperity, and peace through personal intimidation have collided with the stubborn realities of prices, war, and economic uncertainty. Republicans made themselves partners in the performance. Now they face an electorate increasingly interested in the bill, and the man who ordered everything on the menu is unlikely to pick up their share. The warning extends beyond familiar battlegrounds. Republican concern reaching into traditionally dependable territory, including Kansas and South Carolina, suggests a defensive struggle considerably broader than party leaders wanted. House districts Trump carried comfortably cannot automatically be treated as secure. Even favorable district boundaries offer limited prote...

  **A STATE VISIT TO THE HOUSE OF SPITE** An American president receives the leader of China with the resources of a great nation at his disposal. Military aircraft cross the sky, ceremonial details fall into place, and the White House provides a setting steeped in history. The occasion demands seriousness, self-command, and an understanding of the interests being represented. Donald Trump somehow managed to turn it into a home-improvement tour, a demonstration of personal insecurity, and an exhibition of contempt for his predecessor. The result was deeply disappointing and humiliating for the American people. The welcome ceremony supplied the first uncomfortable contrast. As the military flyover thundered overhead, Trump visibly winced and appeared bothered by the noise, while Xi stood beside him with remarkable composure. American aircraft provided the spectacle; the Chinese president provided the stillness. A reaction to noise proves nothing about courage, but the image was stri...

  **DRILL, BABY, DRILL—THEN PANIC, BABY, PANIC** Diesel powers the machinery Americans depend on long before they reach a gasoline pump. It moves freight, harvests crops, supplies construction sites, and carries groceries into communities where families already struggle with the checkout total. When diesel becomes more expensive, the consequences travel through the economy in the price of almost everything people buy. Donald Trump promised energy abundance and cheaper living. Americans are discovering how expensive those promises become when the people making them confuse a campaign slogan with a working knowledge of the world. Now, with fuel costs squeezing households and Republican politicians growing nervous about November, a diesel export ban is being pushed as an emergency remedy. The sales pitch is simple enough to fit on a rally sign: keep American fuel in America and watch prices fall. Unfortunately, refineries, pipelines, shipping routes, and international markets do not r...

  # WHEN JOURNALISM BECOMES STENOGRAPHY Something dangerous has happened to American journalism, and it has little to do with the tired argument over whether reporters lean left or right. The deeper problem is an increasing reluctance to state plainly when the President of the United States says something demonstrably false, economically nonsensical, or unsupported by the facts. Political journalism has become so frightened of appearing judgmental that neutrality is too often confused with intellectual paralysis. A president says something extraordinary, the statement is quoted, opponents respond, perhaps an expert is allowed a sentence near the bottom, and everybody goes home congratulating themselves for having committed journalism. The question that too often disappears is the simplest one: Is what the President just said true? Donald Trump provided an almost laboratory-quality example on September 16 in Gastonia, North Carolina, when he argued that American interest rates shoul...

  # MAKE THE ENABLERS ANSWER America has spent years watching Donald Trump occupy the stage, consume the oxygen, and turn the machinery of government into an extension of his own appetites. His name dominates the argument while the people who sustain his power operate behind the spectacle. As the 2026 midterm elections approach, those officials will ask voters to consider their hometown roots, their reassuring smiles, and their carefully advertised independence. Americans should examine something considerably more revealing: what they did when their country needed them to stand up. A president cannot reduce a constitutional republic to personal obedience through bluster alone. He needs legislators willing to surrender their authority, party officials willing to excuse his conduct, and ambitious people willing to confuse loyalty with public service. He needs someone to approve the personnel, defend the decisions, supply the money, and explain away the consequences. Trump may command...

  # The Fuel Beneath the Fire Americans have been trained for half a century to measure an energy crisis by watching the giant numbers change on the gasoline sign beside the highway. Gasoline goes up, politicians panic. Gasoline goes down, politicians congratulate themselves. Meanwhile, the fuel carrying much of the actual economy rarely receives the same attention. Diesel moves the trucks, tractors, construction equipment, ships, generators and machinery that keep a modern industrial society functioning. And diesel is screaming. The United States and much of the world are confronting an energy problem that cannot be understood simply by looking at the price of crude oil. Brent crude recently hovered near $100 a barrel, painful but hardly unprecedented. Diesel, however, has moved into record territory as global refining capacity strains under war, damaged infrastructure and disrupted trade routes. Reuters reported September 21 that U.S. retail diesel had climbed above $6 a gallon w...