Are the Complaints Behind the “TDS” Label Accurate? : A Plain-Language Guide

Eric SaretskyLeave a comment

The author posed a series of questions on domestic policy, international agreements, public safety and public health under the Trump Administration to review criticism the President’s supporters assign to his critics: Trump Derangement Syndrome or TDS. This article is presented for a general audience. The information presented here was researched and prepared using Ai tool Claude. The sources Claude used were current through mid-2026; court rulings and policies in this area change fast, so this article is not a finished assessment but a starting point for the American public in policies affecting us.

The short version

Many criticisms of the Trump administration rest on documented facts, and some are overstated. This guide sorts them by how well the evidence supports them, as of October 13, 2026.

  • Best supported: Congress’s nonpartisan watchdog (GAO) has found more than a dozen violations of the law on withholding approved funds since January 2025. Court fights over these actions are still unresolved (Part 2).
  • Overstated: Predictions that elections would be cancelled have not come true, and blaming specific disasters or deaths on policy cuts is often not backed by evidence (Part 1).
  • Foreign aid cuts and disease: HIV prevention and testing services dropped where US-funded programs were cut, and a large Ebola outbreak in the DRC has passed 9,000 confirmed cases with no US cases. Record US measles cases (4,080) are mainly a domestic vaccination problem, not an aid-cut result (Part 3).
  • Both sides have a point: Supporters are right that earlier presidents also expanded their power and that border crossings fell. Critics are right about court rulings, budget estimates, and measles data.
  • Still changing: Court cases and policies keep moving, so future articles will cover more focused analysis and findings.

How this document is organized

  1. Part 1: The main complaints, by topic. A quick tour of domestic policy, public safety, international agreements, and public health, with the supporters’ best response to each.
  2. Part 2: Case study on withheld funding. What GAO found about the administration holding back money Congress approved.
  3. Part 3: Case study on foreign aid cuts and disease. Which diseases are rising, whether they reached the US, and whether the cuts plausibly caused them.
  4. Glossary and sources. Plain definitions of the terms used, and the links behind the numbers.

How to read the labels. Well documented means confirmed by court records, government data, or watchdog reports. Disputed means the facts are agreed but their legality or meaning is contested. Unsupported means the claim lacks good evidence. Figures marked as my count or my background knowledge were not independently verified.

Part 1: The main complaints, by topic

“TDS” is a label for criticism that supporters see as reflexive or irrational. It doesn’t tell you whether a particular criticism is accurate, and some are well documented while others are overstated. Below, complaints are sorted by how well they hold up, along with the strongest supporter response to each.

Domestic policy

  • Executive power and spending (well documented, legality contested). Impoundment of appropriated funds, firing of independent-agency officials, and large federal workforce cuts all happened, and the GAO found some impoundment violations. Supporters argue the unitary-executive theory, an electoral mandate, and precedent from past presidents. Courts have split, so “unlawful” is a legal question still being settled, not an established fact.
  • Tariffs (effects documented, authority litigated). Most economists find that importers and consumers bear much of the cost. Legal challenges to the use of emergency powers (IEEPA) went to the Supreme Court. Supporters point to negotiating leverage, revenue, and reshoring goals.
  • Immigration enforcement (both sides have evidence). Critics cite due-process problems, including third-country removals, Alien Enemies Act litigation, and some wrongful detentions of citizens. Supporters correctly note that border crossings fell sharply. Both claims are true.
  • Use of the Justice Department against opponents (documented, interpretation disputed). Prosecutions of Comey and Letitia James drew criticism, and at least one was dismissed over the prosecutor’s improper appointment. Supporters call it reciprocal accountability for earlier cases against Trump.
  • Election claims (the claim that the 2020 election was stolen is unsupported). Courts, audits, and Trump’s own officials found no fraud sufficient to change the outcome. Complaints about this are substantive, though predictions that elections would be cancelled have not materialized.
  • Fiscal effects (CBO-scored). CBO projected the 2025 reconciliation law adds trillions to deficits and reduces insurance coverage through Medicaid changes. Supporters cite growth effects and tax relief.

Public safety

  • National Guard and federal deployments to cities. The deployments are documented, and legality has been contested under Posse Comitatus and the Insurrection Act, with mixed court rulings. Supporters point to reported crime declines in places like DC.
  • January 6 pardons. The pardons and commutations included people convicted of assaulting officers, which critics say undermines law enforcement. Supporters say the prosecutions were excessive.
  • Enforcement tactics. Masked agents, aggressive operations, and fatal shootings during enforcement actions (including in Minneapolis) drew sharp criticism. Supporters say agents face rising assaults and doxxing.
  • Rhetoric and political violence. Critics cite language like “enemy within.” Supporters cite the two attempts on Trump’s life in 2024 and the killing of Charlie Kirk in 2025. Violence has come from multiple directions, and causation claims are hard to establish.
  • Lethal strikes on alleged drug boats. Many legal scholars call them extrajudicial killings. The administration frames them as counter-narco-terrorism.
  • Disaster preparedness. Cuts to FEMA and NOAA staffing were documented. Claims that they caused specific harms, citing the response during the 2025 Texas floods, are much less established.

International treaties and alliances

  • Withdrawals (documented and legal, so the dispute is over wisdom). These include the WHO, the Paris Agreement, UNESCO, and the UN Human Rights Council. Supporters cite sovereignty and disproportionate US funding.
  • Alliances. Critics cite doubts about NATO’s Article 5, pressure on Greenland, and pressure on Ukraine. Supporters note allies agreed at the 2025 summit to a 5% defense-spending target, which they credit to Trump.
  • Trade commitments. Critics say tariffs strain WTO and USMCA obligations. Supporters say those agreements were unfair or poorly enforced.
  • Arms control. The first-term exits from the Iran deal and the INF Treaty continue to be debated, as do the future of New START and the 2025 strikes on Iran.

Public health

  • Foreign aid cuts. The dismantling of USAID and PEPFAR disruptions is documented. Death-toll figures (some in the millions) are model-based estimates and vary widely. Supporters cite waste and fraud.
  • Vaccine policy under RFK Jr. The changes include replacing the vaccine advisory committee, revising recommendations, and cancelling mRNA contracts. Measles outbreaks reached record levels in decades, and experts widely criticized the 2025 claims linking Tylenol to autism as poorly supported. Supporters point to food dye and nutrition reforms and to distrust of institutions that has some basis.
  • Research and agency turmoil. Grant terminations, the attempted cap on NIH indirect costs (blocked by courts), and CDC leadership upheaval are documented.
  • Insurance coverage. Medicaid changes and the expiration of enhanced ACA subsidies are projected to raise the uninsured count.

Where the “TDS” charge sticks

Criticism tends to be weakest when it:

  • predicts imminent dictatorship or cancelled elections that haven’t happened
  • attributes specific disasters or deaths to policy without evidence
  • makes personal or medical diagnoses of Trump
  • treats every action as equally alarming, which hides the better-documented concerns

Supporters are on firmest ground in noting that some critics responded to policies they would have tolerated from other presidents, and that previous administrations also expanded executive power. They are on weaker ground when the label is used to dismiss documented facts, like court rulings, CBO estimates, or the measles data.

Part 2: Case study on withheld government funding (impoundment)

In plain terms: Congress passes laws saying how much money agencies must spend and on what. Impoundment means the executive branch refuses to spend that money, or lets it expire unspent. A 1974 law lets a president ask Congress to cancel funds, but the money must be released if Congress does not agree. GAO, a nonpartisan agency that works for Congress, checks whether that happened. The details below are current as of October 13, 2026.

How the process works. Under the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 (ICA), a president who wants to cancel funds Congress appropriated must send a special message proposing a rescission. Funds can be held back temporarily while Congress considers it, but if Congress does not act, they must be released. GAO reviews impoundments and reports violations to Congress. GAO states that its role is procedural and that it takes no position on whether the underlying programs are good policy.

Timing caveat. Most of GAO’s 2026 violation findings concern conduct from fiscal year (FY) 2025. Only the September 29 letter concerns FY2026 funds. Federal News Network reported that the September decision was GAO’s first ICA decision in about a year.

Tally

  • As of the September 29 decision, reporting put the number of GAO-identified ICA violations at 12 since January 2025.
  • Two further violation findings followed on October 7 (AHRQ and EPA, below). By my count that makes 14, but that is my inference, so check GAO’s Impoundment Control Act page for the official list.
  • In 2025, GAO testified that it had opened 39 impoundment investigations.

In October 2026, GAO issued two major Impoundment Control Act (ICA) decisions: one on presidential rescission proposals and another finding HHS illegally withheld $78 million in health research funds.

1. Presidential Special Message Review – September 25, 2026

On September 29, 2026, GAO released B‑338788, reviewing the President’s special message proposing rescissions from 11 appropriation accounts U.S. Government Accountability Office (U.S. GAO)U.S. Government Accountability Office (U.S. GAO).

  • Key finding: Under the ICA, the President may propose rescissions to Congress, but cannot withhold appropriated funds beyond their fiscal year expiration unless Congress enacts a rescission bill.
  • GAO concluded the President may not force the expiration of budget authority already enacted and not rescinded, regardless of size, because doing so subverts Congress’s constitutional “power of the purse” U.S. Government Accountability Office (U.S. GAO)U.S. Government Accountability Office (U.S. GAO).
  • The decision is procedural, not a policy judgment, and reaffirms GAO’s role in protecting congressional prerogatives.

Full report: GAO B‑338788 – Impoundment Control Act of 1974: Review of the President’s Special Message of September 25, 2026 U.S. Government Accountability Office (U.S. GAO)U.S. Government Accountability Office (U.S. GAO).

2. HHS AHRQ Withholding – October 7, 2026

On October 7, 2026, GAO issued B‑337872 finding that HHS violated the ICA by withholding over $78 million in FY 2025 Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) grant funds U.S. Government Accountability Office (U.S. GAO)U.S. Government Accountability Office (U.S. GAO)+2.

  • Context: AHRQ staff responsible for grant administration were laid off under an executive order, leading to reduced grant awarding.
  • Violation: HHS withheld funds without submitting the required special message to Congress, making it an unlawful impoundment rather than a permissible programmatic delay     political.orgpolitical.org+1.
  • GAO stressed that agencies must prudently obligate or expend appropriated funds for another permissible purpose; they cannot simply withhold them because of lump‑sum appropriations U.S. Government Accountability Office (U.S. GAO)U.S. Government Accountability Office (U.S. GAO)+1.
  • The decision notes ongoing litigation and states that the Comptroller General may bring a civil action to compel obligation if funds remain improperly withheld U.S. Government Accountability Office (U.S. GAO)U.S. Government Accountability Office (U.S. GAO).

Full report: GAO B‑337872 – AHRQ Application of ICA to Grant Funds Availability U.S. Government Accountability Office (U.S. GAO)U.S. Government Accountability Office (U.S. GAO).

Summary

These decisions reinforce the ICA’s core principle: Congress must approve any rescission or withholding of appropriated funds; the Executive Branch cannot unilaterally block them.

GAO actions in 2026

1. Pocket rescission special message (B-338788, September 29, 2026).

  • On September 25, 2026, the President sent Congress a special message proposing rescissions from 11 appropriation accounts, and OMB simultaneously issued a reapportionment letter withholding those amounts from obligation. The OMB letter was addressed to the Departments of Commerce, Justice, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, Education, Housing and Urban Development, and international assistance programs.
  • All 11 accounts expire at the end of FY2026 (September 30). The congressional consideration period ends no earlier than November 9, 2026, after the funds expire. That is why the tactic is called a pocket rescission: the funds lapse before Congress can act.
  • GAO concluded that the ICA does not allow the withholding of funds past their expiration date, so the special message does not authorize withholding beyond FY2026. GAO relied on the ICA’s text, its legislative history, Supreme Court precedent, and the constitutional framework, and cited earlier decisions including B-330330 (2018) and B-337805 (September 2025).
  • GAO added that any withholding past expiration, regardless of size, undermines Congress’s power of the purse. It declined to examine other legal issues the message might raise.
  • The amount is reported inconsistently: about $810 million in The Hill’s coverage, and nearly $1 billion in Federal News Network and AcademyHealth reporting. Housing Counseling Assistance is among the affected funds, according to Rep. Rosa DeLauro, and AHRQ funds were also included.
  • OMB Director Russell Vought responded that the finding was not a surprise.

2. HHS, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (B-337872, October 7, 2026): violation.

  • HHS did not obligate or spend more than $78 million of AHRQ’s FY2025 appropriation before the fiscal year closed and sent no special message.
  • GAO found this was an impoundment rather than a mere programmatic delay. It reasoned that by removing a large share of grant-administration staff shortly before year-end, HHS eliminated AHRQ’s capacity to carry out its authorized functions.
  • AcademyHealth estimates AHRQ lost about 80 percent of its staff. Grant Witness data cited by Inside Higher Ed show AHRQ grant spending of $41.3 million in FY2026, versus $216 million in FY2025 and $419 million in FY2024.
  • Litigation over the delay of AHRQ grant funds is ongoing.

3. EPA, Community Change Grants (B-337485, October 7, 2026): violation.

  • Under the Inflation Reduction Act’s Environmental and Climate Justice Block Grants program, EPA paused payments and then terminated the Community Change Grants. Press coverage put the terminated grants at more than $1 billion.
  • GAO found two violations: withholding funds after deciding to end the program, and withholding them from obligation by terminating the grants, in both cases without a special message to Congress.
  • GAO noted that Congress later rescinded the unobligated program balances in Public Law 119-21. It still found the earlier termination was an impoundment.
  • GAO also relied on a court’s reasoning that the statute did not let EPA withhold funds simply because it disagreed with the program’s purposes. Related litigation continues, including a Fourth Circuit stay of an injunction and a remand asking the district court to consider whether the rescission mooted the claims.

4. Department of Education, Child Care Access Means Parents in School (B-337813, October 7, 2026): no violation. This finding is a reminder that GAO does not rule against the administration in every case.

Earlier decisions (2025), for context

MatterDecisionResult
DOT, National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) programSpring 2025Violation
HHS, Head Start2025Violation
HHS, NIH grants (B-337203)Summer 2025Violation
DOE, Renew America’s Schools (B-337208)July 31, 2025Both violation and no violation
USDA, Environmental Quality Incentives Program (B-337209)August 5, 2025No violation
DHS, FEMA FY2025 assistance (B-337204.1)September 15, 2025Both violation and no violation

Assessment: how well do the complaints hold up?

  • Strongly supported: GAO, a nonpartisan legislative-branch agency, has formally found repeated ICA violations, including the specific dollar amounts and mechanisms above. The core factual complaint, that appropriated funds were withheld or allowed to expire without the statutory process, is well documented.
  • Limits of what GAO’s findings show: They are statutory conclusions, not court judgments. GAO’s opinions are not binding on the executive branch. The Comptroller General may sue to compel release of funds, but reporting indicates GAO has never filed such a suit and has taken no enforcement action on its conclusions. Several related cases remain in the courts, and whether the ICA itself constrains a president is a question the administration has contested. That background comes from earlier reporting, not the sources retrieved for this section.
  • Where critics overreach: Describing the whole pattern as unprecedented lawlessness skips over GAO’s own mixed results (Education, USDA, and the mixed FEMA and DOE findings), and over the fact that earlier presidents of both parties also had disputes with GAO over impoundment.
  • Supporters’ strongest responses: Contesting GAO’s interpretation and authority; pointing out that Congress itself rescinded the EPA balances; and arguing the programs were wasteful or mismanaged. GAO deliberately does not weigh those policy arguments.
  • Source caution: Statements from DeLauro, Murray, and Boyle are Democratic officials’ press releases. The primary sources are GAO’s own decisions.

Sources for Part 2

Part 3: Case study on foreign aid cuts and disease

In plain terms: In 2025 the US dismantled USAID, its main overseas aid agency, and cut many health programs. Researchers warned this would increase disease. This part checks, disease by disease, which outbreaks are actually rising in 2026, whether they have reached the US, and whether the cuts plausibly caused them. The details below are current as of October 13, 2026.

Scope. This section covers diseases (1) detected inside US states or territories in 2026, or (2) rising in 2026 compared with 2020, and asks how strong the evidence is that US foreign aid cuts contributed. Evidence on the cuts’ effects is much stronger for service disruptions overseas than for disease detected in the US, and several US trends have mainly domestic causes.

What the cuts were, and what modelers estimate

  • USAID was dismantled in 2025. KFF found that 71% of HIV-related awards it identified were terminated, and about 80% of USAID malaria awards were terminated. Congress nonetheless kept appropriating money: $4.8 billion for PEPFAR and about $805 million for PMI and other bilateral malaria work in FY2026, and the US pledged $4.6 billion to the Global Fund through 2029. US funding for HIV in low- and middle-income countries still fell from $6.7 billion to $4.6 billion between 2024 and 2025, according to a report cited in Nature.
  • Death estimates are model-based and vary widely. A Lancet study (ISGlobal) projects at least 9.4 million additional deaths by 2030 if aid cuts continue at recent rates. A separate Lancet analysis co-authored at UCLA projects more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030 from USAID cuts, including 4.5 million children under 5. The Center for Global Development estimated that USAID cuts alone may have cost 500,000 to 1,000,000 lives in 2025, while Ireland’s government has cited 500,000 to 700,000. These are projections or estimates, not counted deaths.
  • Observed effects are clearer for services than for deaths. A Lancet Global Health study at four NGOs in Uganda and Zimbabwe found HIV prevention services down by about a third to nearly two-thirds from 2024 levels, PrEP use down as much as 72%, and testing down as much as 64%. A 14-country analysis cited by KFF found significant drops in access to HIV services from early 2025 to early 2026, with limited recovery.

Diseases detected in the US or its territories in 2026

Measles (confirmed US increase; aid link weak).

  • As of October 8, 2026, CDC reported 4,080 confirmed cases, the highest annual total since 1991 and above 2025’s 2,289. There have been 42 outbreaks, and about 95% of cases were in people who were unvaccinated or of unknown status.
  • Measles elimination status (held since 2000) is at risk, and reporting says the US technically met the criteria for losing it earlier this year because of continuous transmission.
  • Compared with 2020, the rise is dramatic:  In 2020, the United States reported 13 confirmed measles cases, according to CDC’s National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System.

Source and data

  • The figure comes from the CDC’s National Notifiable Diseases: Infectious Annual Tables (Table 2k), which compiles confirmed measles cases reported to CDC through the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System (NNDSS) CDCCDC. This is the official national dataset for notifiable infectious diseases in the U.S.

Context

  • Elimination status: The U.S. had declared measles elimination in 2000, meaning no sustained community transmission has been detected for at least 12 consecutive months. However, occasional importations occur, and outbreaks can happen in under‑vaccinated communities CDC.
  • 2020 situation: The 13 cases in 2020 were consistent with the low baseline level of measles activity in the U.S. after the 2019 outbreaks, which had temporarily threatened elimination status.
  • How to access the full dataset
  • You can view the complete 2020 measles case table, including breakdowns by region and reporting area, in the CDC’s public domain PDF: CDC 2020 Annual Report – Table 2k (Measles)
  • In summary: The USA recorded 13 confirmed measles cases in 2020, reflecting the country’s-maintained measles elimination status but also the ongoing need for high vaccination coverage to prevent outbreaks.
  • The surge is driven by domestic undervaccination in specific communities (Utah, Arizona, South Carolina, Pennsylvania). Foreign aid cuts could matter indirectly through global measles surveillance and vaccination support, but at present there is no quantifiable data.

Clade I mpox (increasing in the US; aid link indirect and weak).

  • The first US Clade I case was reported in November 2024. CDC counted 15 cases through March 2026, and the PAHO regional report listed 50 by August 27, 2026. CDC states that clade I cases were increasing as of July 2026, and the US reported its first Clade I case with no travel history.
  • There was no Clade I in the US in 2020, so any detection is an increase.
  • Link to aid cuts: CDC says the DRC is no longer the epicenter of Clade Ib spread. Of 33 exported Clade Ib cases worldwide in January to March 2026, 24 originated in Europe and only 8 in Central or Eastern Africa. That weakens a direct aid-cut explanation for US cases.

Dengue in US territories (ongoing; no aid link established).

  • Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands declared dengue outbreaks in 2024. American Samoa declared an emergency in July 2025, identified 409 cases from June to November 2025 (76% in children), and as of mid-April 2026 its outbreak declaration was still active.
  • I did not retrieve complete 2026 case counts, so a 2026 versus 2020 comparison is not verified.

As of 2025, the United States reported approximately 2,096 confirmed dengue cases, including both travel-related and locally acquired infections.

In 2025, dengue activity in the U.S. has been notably elevated, with 2,096 confirmed cases reported nationwide through the CDC’s ArboNET system, reflecting both travel-associated and local transmission States with significant local transmission include Florida, Texas, California, Arizona, and Hawaii, where climate and mosquito populations create favorable conditions for the Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes

Historically, most dengue cases in the continental U.S. occur in travelers returning from endemic regions. However, recent years, including 2025, show increasing local transmission, particularly in southern and coastal states. For example, Florida reported 91 locally acquired cases, California 18, and Texas 1 by early 2025. Travelers returning from high-risk countries can introduce the virus to local mosquito populations, potentially triggering new outbreaks

Comparison to Previous Years

The 2025 case count represents a continuation of elevated dengue activity compared to prior years, with a notable increase in local transmission in traditionally low-risk areas

Diseases rising abroad in 2026 (not detected in the US)

Bundibugyo Ebola, DRC and neighbors (largest aid-cut debate).

  • First reported May 14 to 15, 2026 in Ituri Province, DRC. WHO declared a public health emergency of international concern on May 16. CDC reported 8,750 confirmed cases and 4,208 deaths as of October 6, and Al Jazeera reported more than 9,000 confirmed cases on October 13. It is the second-largest Ebola outbreak on record, caused by a species with no approved vaccine or treatment.
  • In 2020, the DRC’s Equateur outbreak was about 130 cases (per Claude), so the 2026 outbreak is vastly larger.
  • No case has been detected in the US as of October 6. Two Americans infected in the DRC were treated in Germany and recovered. CDC calls the risk to the US very low, and on October 11 it extended a 30-day entry suspension for travelers from the DRC, Uganda, and South Sudan after Kenya reported its first imported case and death.
  • Aid-cut link: Experts including Craig Spencer argue the outbreak spread undetected from about January to May in a setting of reduced global health support, and a September 2026 paper in Frontiers in Public Health argues the USAID closure weakened outbreak detection (it cites USAID’s STRIDES program, an estimated $245 million investment in partner detection capacity). This is a plausible mechanism but not proven. Initial tests also detected only the Zaire species, which is a diagnostic gap, and Ebola outbreaks arise from many factors.

HIV (service declines documented; infection surge projected).

  • Testing, PrEP, and treatment access fell where US-funded programs were cut. Models (Burnet Institute) project 4.4 to 10.8 million additional infections and 770,000 to 2.9 million additional deaths from 2025 to 2030 under the most severe funding scenario.
  • Caveat: when testing falls, fewer cases are diagnosed, so reported cases can drop even if true infections rise. Rises in measured incidence are not yet documented in the sources I retrieved.

Malaria (rising for years; cuts add risk).

  • Global malaria cases have risen for six consecutive years, so the trend predates the 2025 cuts. Sources describe cuts, drug resistance, insecticide resistance, extreme weather, and population growth as combined drivers.
  • A CIDRAP report cites a researcher who said the malaria death rate at some DRC clinics in January was three times higher than a year earlier, attributed to anti-malarial drug shortages. That is a single-source account, not national data.

Cholera (a counterexample).

  • WHO reported 163,031 cholera and acute watery diarrhea cases and 1,686 deaths from January 1 to June 28, 2026, a 49.5% drop in cases and 57% drop in deaths versus the same period in 2025. This does not fit a simple story that aid cuts increased every outbreak disease.  

Assessment: how strong is the evidence?

DiseaseIn US or territories in 2026?Rising vs 2020?Evidence linking to US aid cuts
MeaslesYes, 4,080 casesYes, sharplyWeak; mainly domestic undervaccination
Clade I mpoxYes, about 50 casesYes (none in 2020)Weak; DRC no longer the main source
Dengue (territories)Yes, ongoing outbreaksNot verified for 2026None found
Bundibugyo EbolaNoYes, far largerPlausible (detection delay), unproven
HIVNot applicableProjected; services downStrong for service disruption, weaker for case counts
MalariaNot applicableYes, rising for yearsMixed; cuts one of several drivers
CholeraNot applicableDown vs 2025Not supported
  • Where critics are on strong ground: Documented terminations of HIV and malaria awards, measured drops in HIV services, and a plausible mechanism (weaker surveillance) for the late detection of the Ebola outbreak.
  • Where the TDS charge has more force: Attributing US measles or US mpox cases to foreign aid cuts is poorly supported, and headline death totals are modeled projections. Cholera’s 2026 decline also undercuts blanket claims.
  • Supporters’ strongest responses: Congress kept funding PEPFAR, PMI, and the Global Fund at or near prior levels; the administration’s America First Global Health Strategy aims to shift costs to partner countries; and models rest on assumptions that may overstate harm. Critics reply that terminated awards and staff losses disrupted programs regardless of topline appropriations.

Sources for Part 3

Glossary

  • Impoundment: The executive branch refuses to spend money that Congress approved.
  • Rescission: A formal request asking Congress to cancel money it already approved.
  • Pocket rescission: A rescission request sent so close to the end of the fiscal year that the funds expire before Congress can vote.
  • Special message: The formal notice to Congress that a president must send to propose a rescission.
  • Impoundment Control Act (ICA): The 1974 law that sets the rules for withholding or cancelling approved funds.
  • GAO (Government Accountability Office): A nonpartisan agency that audits government spending for Congress.
  • OMB (Office of Management and Budget): The White House office that manages the federal budget.
  • CBO (Congressional Budget Office): A nonpartisan agency that estimates what laws will cost.
  • IEEPA: A law giving the president emergency economic powers, used to justify some tariffs.
  • Posse Comitatus Act and Insurrection Act: Laws limiting, and in some cases allowing, the use of the military for domestic law enforcement.
  • USAID: The US Agency for International Development, which ran most US foreign aid until it was dismantled in 2025.
  • PEPFAR: The US program that funds HIV testing and treatment overseas.
  • PMI (President’s Malaria Initiative): The US program that funds malaria prevention and treatment overseas.
  • PrEP: A medicine that prevents HIV infection.
  • Clade I mpox: A family of the mpox virus that is generally more severe than the one behind the 2022 outbreak.
  • Measles elimination status: A country has this status when measles has not spread continuously within its borders for a year or more. The US has held it since 2000.

Public health emergency of international concern: The World Health Organization’s highest alert level for an outbre

NCO Club Memories: Celebrating a Life of Service and Friendship

Eric Saretsky1 Comment

Our neighborhood “NCO club” has ushered my comrade onto his next and final assignment. I am hoping that Valhalla receives him warmly. Sergeant John Norman, US Army veteran, 72 years old, died in the morning of October 19th at his home in El Cajon, California. He leaves behind his wife of 50 years, daughters and grandchildren, friends, golfing buddies and many members of his union retiree club. Though I neither golfed, nor was a truck driver, and our wives only knew one another generally, John and I could say we were as close as two veterans might be.

Origin of the NCO Club

We were neighbors for almost 24 years, and almost weekly over that time we shared several beers, sometimes good bourbon, and small talk. We would reminisce about our military experiences, family, and the state of the country and world. He enjoyed recalling his late mother-in-law, a female Marine, which always seemed odd in that her daughter, his wife, was quiet and reserved whenever I met him for a drink in his garage – our clubhouse. He could remember names of those he went to basic training while I struggle, though our similar experiences were only separated by five years. One story, he particularly enjoyed retelling, concerned a recruit who had money stolen, and the drill sergeant giving the offender time to place the money at night in an office drawer. Apparently, the guilty party did not return the stolen goods; the company then threw the thief a “blanket party”. Team reunified, justice dispensed, and funds recovered.

He served during the later years of the Vietnam War, in a medical compound next to the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). The stories he recalled treating soldiers’ indiscretions – drunkenness and for things that penicillin cured, never got old. As a truck driver delivering to military installations in San Diego, he would often tell a story of a delivery when a Navy supply sailor would not receive his shipment because he was playing games on a computer. Returning to the freight company, and behind schedule, a senior officer called John’s company to ask why needed equipment was not delivered. The story apparently did not paint the lazy sailor in a good light. As John told it, that officer subsequently reassigned the individual to the point farthest away from his home in the south of San Diego County, to Camp Pendleton 50 miles away. And one of the stories that I particularly recall had to do with his long-unused medical training. Though John never continued working in healthcare after his Army service, like some former Army medics and Navy Corpsmen I knew, I believe a cabinet installer owes his present use of fingers to John’s quick thinking. Some eight or ten years ago, in a brief lack of focus, the man installing cabinets for John’s kitchen strayed too close to his table saw. John packed the wounds and bundled the amputated fingers in ice, and got him to the ER.

Roses are not only red

We all benefitted from Sergeant Norman’s many talents. His passion was growing roses and he was a dedicated member of the San Diego Rose Society. He would show me many different varieties he tended, recognizing all by name. For several years, he would help me tend to roses I had grown under his mentorship. This continued until I could no longer hide that I was absolutely horrible at keeping them alive. His prowess as a gardener, though compromised years ago by a war with gophers (still ongoing), was unmatched. For 2 decades, the neighbors in our little block were recipients of delicious oranges and grapefruit, squash, tomatoes and peppers, which he distributed over his wife’s protests all year long. When he brought these gifts to my wife, she would generally nod in my direction, and say I should go over to have a beer (or 3 or 4 or 5!) with him. These were the best times for the “NCO Club”. Each Christmas, we traded gifts – my wife’s peanut butter chocolates were exchanged with his homemade cheesecakes. Sometimes these individual cheesecakes, gifts to neighbors, family and friends, might include an additional gift as an incentive for a little NCO Club time – a Bloody Mary he concocted for my wife. (I am allergic to spicy peppers but that’s another story.) Though we had conflicting New Years Day festivities, he would always subsequently invite us to enjoy a lavish spread for a Superbowl party at his home.

His talent thus extended to more than roses, vegetable gardening, golfing, or consuming Coors Light. Using skills I assume developed in his formative years of the 1960s and 70’s in carpentry, welding, plumbing and auto mechanics, he lent expertise to others. Those were great times to recall during our “NCO Club”. Though we served in different eras, and different branches of the military, we were able to see eye-to-eye on many issues. We routinely talked politics, gardening, social issues and married life. He was never concerned with spiritual things – rejecting me politely but brusquely or lecherously off-putting the infrequent door knocking parishioners of a local church. He knew I practiced my faith and would tease me to have a beer with him before going to my evening church meetings.

Neighborhood watch

In the early 2000’s, John would dutifully text or call to report at 10pm to his newly-married neighbor, “neighborhood watch: your garage door (or car door or trunk) is still open”. He kept an eye on things when my family traveled out of town. Over a quarter-century, we only had a few incidents that gave us reason to lock our doors at night and install security cameras. Before COVID, a lost, drunken sailor crashed into a neighbor’s home. On a street that boasted 3 veterans, a retired federal agent and a retired cop as longtime residents, thieves broke into my car and one night, sawed off the catalytic converter from John’s 1992 Ford F250. But John’s watchful eye kept wanderers out of the area. We often joked of protecting our street with sandbags and a 50 caliber gun emplacement. Instead, we had the watchful John Norman.

He used to encourage me after I retired as Navy reservist, that we would have more time to defend our homes once I retired from the job I commuted to for another eight years. Whether it was someone recently licensed speeding up the street, or learning that the long-parked car beside the overgrown pepper tree at the boundary of his front yard belonged to my middle son, things did not escape him. Through and after COVID, we never needed to defend ourselves from the Zombie Apocalypse but with age came more challenges to health. We all endured small bouts of COVID, and survived. We attributed our longevity to all the exposure we had in the service – everything from malaria pills and flu vaccines to anthrax shots and chemicals we worked around. As other neighbors and I joined him in retirement, while I and others endure age-related heath problems, John was the enigma. He worked in his yard constantly, tending to dozens of roses, vegetables and harvesting fruit from lemon, lime and grapefruit trees. He volunteered every year at the county Fair Rose garden. Every Thursday, he was part of a foursome playing golf all over the county. He liked his beer and Crown Royal. He boasted but for his neck and his waistline and overall health defied doctors expectations. When his wife’s medication no longer let her eat grapefruit, the harvest would be distributed to me. Then I went on the same medication. For the last ten years, John changed his eating habits to cooking mostly vegetarian meals to support his wife’s health. I assume those habits kept him going right until Sunday morning.

I shall miss you my friend. Until we all meet in that next realm, rest easy. We will stand the watch.

Treasure Hunting: Memories Behind Every Item

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One of our family’s traditions every January (besides my spouse searching for, and acquiring outdoor Christmas decorations at a discount) is taking several boxes of used clothing, housewares, exercise equipment, and knickknacks to Goodwill or other donation center. The only things I do not part with are contained in 3 black and yellow tubs stacked in the garage. Some of these I acquired during several moves around the country as a child and then later, during 30 years of a Navy career.

Everyone has a sea story to tell

Often, I bring back interesting stories when talking with volunteers at the donation center. This week, I chatted with a guy who had been ‘mentored’ by Frank Zappa in his youth while a musician in a recording studio. “It is so amazing that records (we called them LPs) have outlasted cassettes and CDs. I still have several thousand albums in my collection.” Working at the Goodwill, the option to find unusual items related to his history is probably a perk.

Reading a story online about the making of the second “Top Gun” movie, it remarked about the original movie’s technical advisor Pete “Viper” Pettigrew, an original Top Gun instructor. I was fortunate to meet him several years ago aboard the Midway museum in San Diego. “You should consider being a docent here, Chief”, he told me. ” You can tell (the same) sea stories to visitors every day.” While my wife has heard or lived many of my stories, I have yet to tell them to our adult children and grandchildren. Still, when our eldest son spent four years in the Army, he would call home to talk Army jargon to his mom; she would hand the phone to me and we would converse using the “army-navy jargon” translator all veterans know instinctively.

As I go through my collected mementos, decades-old memories come back vividly. And it is for this reason, I have a difficult time parting with even ticket stubs. (I still have, somewhere, ticket stubs from the 1980 Los Angeles Pink Floyd “Wall” concert.)

One man’s trash is another’s treasure

Every January, as I toss out old appliances, irrelevant papers and tools from work my wife and I no longer have need, and things neither of us remember buying, I take some time to look through my “memorabilia”. When I rotate through the bric-a-brac, displayed in a cabinet by my writing desk, I remember the places and people I met when I acquired them. Unfortunately, some break into pieces while using them over the years (mugs and glassware from my travels); some have gotten lost (letters I wrote my late mother during various deployments), and the rest I rediscover in random corners around the house. Other items I know to be fragile antiques, but “heirloom” is a far-fetched label for a fragile Bentwood rocking chair, old monogrammed silverware, military badges, Egyptian papyrus, or Irish wool blankets.

The Bentwood rocker, a butter churn, iron tools, glass medicinal bottles and scraps of a charcoal drawing have come to me after my mother passed. Some fifty years ago, when my parents divorced, I was moved from California to Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The home my mother bought together was originally built in 1745, and later became the studio for a famous muralist of the late 19th Century, Edwin H Blashfield. Predating Indiana Jones by ten years, I became an amateur archaeologist, uncovering odd items buried in the soil under a centuries-old barn. When we moved yet again, after my Sophomore year of high school, to Arizona, I convinced my mother to moved a 1930’s era Zenith radio with us. While it worked for a time on the Cape, finding vacuum tubes became difficult. I did not know then how to repair electronics or rewind coils. That was one of the influences that lead me to a Navy career in electronics after high school. Unfortunately, long before my mother passed, the radio innards and the cabinet disappeared.

image of a similar model to what I once had

Heirlooms only have value if there are interesting stories attached to them. At the moment, our grandchildren are more focused building things with magnetic tiles, splattering paint on bits of cardboard, and enjoying snacks at Pop-pop’s house.

After a year sabbatical, I am committing this year to putting memories online, so my children and grandchildren can look at images and stories and if interested, keep a few items out of the January trips to the Goodwill store – or the trashcan. If you have not given up on an old Chief, I hope the readers of this blog will stay with me.

help, Mr. Peabody!

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In many television shows and movies during my childhood, the idea of using a time machine to travel backward was a solution to many problems and answered many questions. The cartoon “Peabody’s Improbable History” featured the adventures of a genius, Mr. Peabody, and his boy, Sherman. They travelled back in history to visit various people who, but for Mr. Peabody, might not have been immortalized for developing inventions or theories. Did Mr. Peabody visit Pythagoras? A true story about translating a Babylonian clay tablet, discovered a hundred years ago, indicates the “Pythagorean Theorem” and trigonometry were used fifteen hundred years earlier than the Greek we credit.

A movie and several television episodes of Star Trek featured time travel, but one (All Our Yesterdays), has Captain Kirk and crew investigate a planet whose population has vanished ahead of their star about to go nova. In the episode, a timekeeper sent everyone backward in time to live out their lives and avoid obliteration. In our history, myths of ancient civilizations like Atlantis or Homeric tales that proved later to be true, indicates history repeats itself. With nations today always on the verge of destroying one another, nuclear war is more real than our Sun going nova- at least for the next 4 billion years. However, we have just reached the milestone sending human-made inventions beyond our solar system’s limits (Voyager 1 and 2). An achievement a half-million years in the making.

Paleontology and genetic research suggest that modern homo sapiens might have out-competed homo Neanderthalis to inherit the world. In recent years, the discovered remnants of presupposed modern construction techniques nearly a half-million years old suggest we may repeat history over and over again. Discoveries of enormous cities reclaimed by the Amazonian jungles, Bronze Age religious sites drowned by the sea, and Roman roads and aqueducts demonstrate a modern knowledge of science (astronomy) and construction techniques. Perhaps, like the conquering Spanish conquistadors in the Americas, or the Near East Babylonians, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks and Ottomans, might humans repeatedly destroy libraries that housed knowledge it then takes millennia to relearn?

Mr. Peabody, we need you.

On the road

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My wife insists that a road trip I am currently enjoying would make an entertaining video. She was intimating that she should have put a camera in the vehicle, so our friends back home could enjoy colorful jabs we were bound to make during the ride. We have made these at each other’s expense for decades. When I first suggested riding along with Russ, I protested to him and my spouse at game night, “It is not that I want to go so much, as I want to make sure Russ crosses the state line and keeps going.”

“Your wife will enjoy a peaceful week without you around. I’m the giver here,” He retorted.

He and I, two retired Navy Chief Petty Officers, drove fifteen hundred miles together from San Diego to Norman, Oklahoma in April. This would be both my first time RV’ing and first time making a road trip with Russ. I had asked to accompany him back in February, and he had quickly agreed. Together with our wives, we had been close friends for two decades, serving together in our community church, enjoying shows, concerts and other events together. From our earliest days, he would greet me Sundays, “Hey Old Man” and I would retort, “Respect your elders!”. We were exactly six days apart in age. “But you are, and will always be older”, he would say.

That I retired as a Senior Chief Petty Officer, which in the military paygrade was E-8, and he a Chief, or E-7, was always a running source of amusement. “That is exactly what I would expect from an Even Number.” I would generally follow up with something about him being odd. For the last several years, we would only pause our characteristic jabs during church or our small bible group meeting each week. After his wife passed, his neighbors, my wife and I spent Friday evenings playing Mexican Train. (It also could have been an excuse to drink margaritas but we never made excuses.)

Fast forward to this year. With his house sold and a new one under construction in Oklahoma, we were on the road moving him back to his Oklahoma roots, daughter and grandchildren.  Our first stop was to visit his friend during a stopover in Las Vegas. Where many would think casinos, we instead visited the Pin Ball Museum together.

The pinball museum has hundreds of operational machines – and many that need repair. This was sort of a pleasant memory for Russ as he had repaired many of those 1960 -1980s era machines before his Navy career. Playing several games, Russ casually reminded me that I might be dropped off somewhere in Nevada, if I continued to win as handily.

In Las Vegas, it always takes an edge to get into exclusive places. Any good Navy Chief knows how to get things done, in uniform or in retirement. And so we had an “in” to get a table for a great dinner at Top of the World Restaurant at the Strat. (Of course, now that my wife knows, I will have to go the traditional route to make reservations for our next anniversary,) We also had tickets to the Cirque de Soleil Michael Jackson tribute show, One. And now, that my wife also knows this, I will have to scramble to get two tickets for this phenomenal show as well.

The next day we got out of Las Vegas a little later than planned. I had to walk our other passenger on this road trip first. Our other passenger, Karma, is Russ’ dog, the sweetest roly-poly pittie dogs any . Oh, and we had a little electrical problem that needed attention. Though we had made an art of good-natured ribbing each other at every opportunity, we barely traded a barb, “You doddering old man. Can I get your walker?”

Instead, the twenty-something hours of driving across three states was spent with the fictional adventures of Mike Rabb, a former CIA special operator, as he tracked down megalomaniacs and world-destabilizing villains. These audio books kept us focused while we drove through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and then into the Sooner state.

We arrived in Norman in time to catch a little nap, meet Russ’s family and catch a rare celestial event over this specific part of the country, a total solar eclipse across the central U.S.

So this week is a vacation and perhaps an opportunity to invest in some property. And catch up with a little sarcastic bombasts.

for amusement only

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Any discussion today about the future of society, in peace or in wartime, or the future of art and entertainment, or scientific discoveries seem to include Artificial Intelligence or AI. Yet just as the ancient Greek story of Prometheus, punished for eternity by giving the secret of fire to mortals, we mortals are hell-bent on discovering and distributing ever-more sophisticated means to curb our curiosity, intellect, creativity, and human interaction.

I read online that AI can now deliver various sorts of creative solutions, including drawings and even blog posts. I decided to make a simple test. These drawings were produced by a web application in response to test queries I made using Microsoft Copilot. For the first drawing, I gave Copilot a few parameters such as the blog name on a scroll and sea-god Poseidon. After being a bit more structured in my defining parameters, Copilot returned the latter drawing.

I do not think I will be amused if Copilot starts to independently publish posts on this blog based on my Internet history.

Remembrance

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Twenty-two years ago, we watched in horror when terrorists killed thousands, using airliners as weapons. I lost a former shipmate and mentor, CDR Dan Shanower, at the Pentagon that morning. As a Navy Reservist, several of my unit members were recalled to Active Duty that first month, beginning a campaign involving thousands of servicemembers -the Global War On Terror – that concluded twenty years later. What veterans look upon as “moral injury”, that the bloodshed over decades conclude in a wasted effort of politics and trillions of dollars spent, we must reassure ourselves. As veterans we did our duty honorably. Our fellow veterans -Americans, Allies, Afghan and Iraqi partners, Kurds, and others helped squash terrorism globally. All of us suffered loss. The lesson we all should learn is that conflict between differing politics, cultures and ideologies has always and will continue, to fester. Only unity creates a strong defense against hatred and tyranny.

Yesterday, September 10th, was national Suicide Awareness Day, and I volunteered to help the organizers of a Remembrance Walk in San Diego. Hundreds of people who have lost loved ones, colleagues, or friends come together annually to support one another, and to help spread awareness so that others will have tools and resources to help those contemplating suicide. There were groups and agencies present, informing us that aid is available to the suffering. As many know, the horrors of war, horrific accidents, murder, physical and mental abuse, addiction and apathy are conditions for veterans, family members, school children and First Responders to contemplate suicide. As many have learned, painfully, those who seem to be strongest under such conditions, are themselves suffering and in need of support. Only an engaged, educated and empathetic community creates a strong defense against self-harm.

Ed. A future post will publish various San Diego, as well as national, resources for veterans and others to obtain emotional and physical help, help prevent suicide, and to build community.

Leave No one Behind

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Reprinted, with permission, from Lt Col. (Ret) Scott Mann’s post on LinkedIn, 22 August 2023

In the fall of 2004, a handful of Green Berets volunteered to risk their lives and recover an Army Air Crew that had crashed their small aircraft in the Hindu Kush. Pushing the chopper to its altitude threshold envelope, they landed near the crash site well above 13,000 feet.

Sadly, the crew had succumbed to the elements and didn’t survive.

Storms started to roll in. The SF team stayed on station and battled severe altitude sickness. They extracted every single crew member and their personal effects so that they could be returned to their families for closure.

It mattered.

Our men and women warriors deserve to be remembered. Teach these stories of courage and sacrifice to those too young to remember. And teach them to every generation who come afterwards, that we are a people willing to help the vulnerable against the oppressor. -Editor

Lt. Col. (Ret) Scott Mann, U.S. Army Green Beret, served multiple tours in Afghanistan. Author, veterans advocate, keynote speaker, and leadership coach, has testified before Congress on behalf of our combat veterans, Afghan coalition partners and their families. Author of the play Last Out: Elegy of a Green Beret, is helping to heal the moral injury to thousands of veterans inflicted on them by 20 years of war and America’s ignominious withdrawal at the end of August, 2021.

sea stories and the Costco connection

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For a veteran’s spouse, a trip to get groceries may take a little longer than planned. It has become de rigueur for me on casual outings to wear one of my Navy veteran ballcap collection or t-shirts that recall a 25-year career. Several of my friends today are veterans; however, among millions of San Diego residents there are only a few with whom I share a specific place, time and mutual acquaintances where we served.

I added another last week.

During a shopping trip at Costco, when I excused myself passing a “Shipmate” wearing an “AD-19 Yosemite” ballcap, it started us swapping sea stories. He served at sea on that destroyer tender. I recalled a Machinery Repairman at the Transient barracks who was waiting on orders for that tender. Then we talked about bootcamp. A few years my senior, he was a Recruit Training Company Commander in San Diego at the time I went to Boot Camp here in 1977 and knew my “CC”. As we talked, I was reminded of several others I last talked with decades ago from those early years in my career. But this was the first time in more than forty years, I talked with someone from that period of my life, who knew the first Sailor who shaped my Navy career, Company 941Company Commander, ABE1 Robert Walsh.

Advocating for the homeless veteran

Eric Saretsky2 Comments

Homelessness. The word itself conjures up all sorts of desperate images. Many who have not experienced homelessness are often one paycheck away (layoff or an economic recession) from such a fate. Some of these veterans whom I have encountered in the past, did not expect to be homeless, but due to marital issues, mental health challenges, the high cost of living, or addiction ended up in shelters or on the streets. Help, for those who want it, requires diligence and patience to navigate the bureaucracy. Finding an advocate to help is not easy, and often there are many seeking assistance who require a time-consuming process to provide needed services. For a volunteer not employed in the social services public sector, it means lots of research. Judging by the number of veteran outreach programs started by veterans, we take care of our own.

One such case I have been seeking to help has been “identity-less” for a very long time. In his words, he lost all his identification, military separation papers (DD-214), social security card, state identification, and personal papers, leaving him unable to easily re-engage into society. Twenty years later he reached out to me, finding my business card where he gets mail. In a close circle of friends, and the kindness of a homeless shelter, he was encouraged to take steps to recover. As a veteran, he was originally input in the VA medical system, and yet, without a government-issued document, he cannot prove that the record is his. To verify his identity, a military or VA identity card, social security card, utility bills, or a certified birth certificate are steps to obtaining a state identification card. He will need to have financial means to meet required payment of fees through check or money orders. Even though initially contacted to obtain a personal criminal background check – as a means to confirm his identity, the Department of Justice requires a government-furnish identity card (at minimum an social security card) to submit fingerprints.

As he was once married, even though his spouse has since deceased, he may request a certified copy of a marriage license from the state where it was performed, as a document to confirm identity. However, as he claims he is a native of California, regaining his identity can begin with an application, notarized, to request a certified birth certificate from the Department of Public Health. From there, he can apply at a Veterans Administration office or through a veteran service organization, to request his DD-214. With these government documents, he can request a replacement Social Security card through the local government office, and a state identity card.

Steps to identity recovery in California:

  • VS-113A Obtaining a certified marriage license, for a marriage performed in California (other states have their own processes) as a form of identification
  • VS-111. Obtaining a certified birth certificate . Submit notarized statement from a recognized family member See application, pg 5. Also, an authorized member of a government agency can request the registrant’s birth certificate.
  • If the requestor knows his or her Social Security Number, he may use the government website to request a replacement Social Security card online. Certified copies of other identity documents can be uploaded to the request. These have to bear an official stamp and not be photocopies nor a notarized one. If the SSN is unknown, a visit to a local Social Security office is necessary.
  • For a DD-214, the official Release from Active Duty, visiting a Veterans Administration office may be necessary, unless the former service member has taken the steps to enroll in milConnect. An advocate, or next of kin, may, with the veteran’s permission in writing, request the veteran’s military record or DD-214. Here are the instructions. Noted in the instructions, “Certain basic information needed to locate military service records, includes: the veteran’s complete name as used in service; service number; Social Security Number (if applicable); branch of service; dates of service; date and place of birth. For records affected by the 1973 Fire, additional information, such as place of discharge; last assigned unit; and place of entry into service may be useful.”