Metaphysical Boundaries

How can I do this as a MAN?

And now he is the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Let that sink in.

The guy tasked with overseeing the nation’s health, public-health agencies, medical research, vaccines, food safety, Medicare, Medicaid, and the future health of our children is a man with no medical degree, no clinical training, no public-health credentials — but a truly astonishing courtroom résumé: “Your Honor, the brain parasite situation has impacted my ability to earn.”

Apparently, it did not impact his ability to fail upward into control over institutions staffed by actual doctors, epidemiologists, scientists, researchers, nurses, and public-health professionals.

Just think about the standard being set here. If you want to work in a hospital cafeteria, you need food-safety training. If you want to administer medication, you need licenses and qualifications. If you want to lead a local health department, you need expertise, experience, and a record of understanding public health.

But if you want to run the entire federal health apparatus? Apparently all you need is a famous last name, an endless supply of conspiracies, and enough political usefulness to powerful people who think expertise is elitist.

And before the inevitable whining begins: no, this is not making fun of someone for having a medical issue. It is pointing out the breathtaking absurdity of elevating someone who himself cited serious cognitive impairment in court into one of the most consequential health-policy jobs in the country.

He argued that his earning capacity was diminished. The Trump administration looked at that and said: Perfect. Put him in charge of the agencies that determine whether millions of Americans can access health care, whether disease outbreaks are handled competently, and whether scientific reality gets to survive the next four years.

Because in MAGA America, qualifications are apparently suspicious. Science is “corrupt.” Doctors are “the establishment.” And the guy whose brain-parasite story became part of his divorce litigation is somehow the grown-up in the room.

This is not government. This is a satire writers’ room that got a federal budget.

Exploitation of Labor and Contractors

Undocumented Workers: Paid 200 undocumented Polish laborers $4 to $5 an hour—half the union rate—to demolish the Bonwit Teller building for Trump Tower in 1980. Workers faced 12-hour shifts without protective gear in asbestos dust and received bouncing checks. A class-action lawsuit settled for $1.375 million in 1998. [1, 2]

Wage Theft and Breach of Contract: Sued hundreds of times for failing to pay wages, overtime, or contractually agreed rates. For instance, a New York real estate broker sued him in 2013 for withholding $735,212 in commissions, a dispute settled in 2015. [1, 2]

Targeting Tenants and Consumers

Tenant Rent Schemes: Co-created a sham vendor company with family members to artificially inflate the costs of building services. These fake high costs were presented to government regulators to justify raising rents on rent-regulated tenants in New York. [1]

Eviction Attempts: Attempted aggressive tactics in the 1980s to evict rent-controlled tenants from his properties, such as 100 Central Park South, to replace them with luxury developments. [1]

Trump University Fraud: Defrauded thousands of students through his defunct real estate education program. Shortly after his 2016 election, Trump paid a $25 million settlement to students who accused the program of using deceptive marketing and high-pressure sales tactics. [1]

Misuse of Charity and Tax Systems

The Trump Foundation Closure: Utilized his New York-based charitable foundation as a personal checkbook. A 2018 lawsuit by the New York Attorney General proved he used charity funds to settle business legal debts and buy personal portraits. A judge ordered the foundation dissolved and forced Trump to pay $2 million in damages. [1, 2]

Criminal Tax Fraud: In 2022, the New York supreme court convicted the Trump Organization on 17 criminal counts of tax fraud and falsifying business records. The company systemically doled out off-the-books luxury perks to top executives to evade taxes. [1]

Financial and Corporate Fraud

“We are unique among the world’s armies. We are unique among the world’s militaries. We don’t take an oath to a country. We don’t take an oath to a tribe. We don’t take an oath to a religion. We don’t take an oath to a king, or a queen, or a tyrant, or to a dictator, or to a wannabe dictator. We don’t take an oath to an individual. We take an oath to the Constitution, and we take an oath to the idea, that as America, we are willing to die to protect it.”

“Those values and ideas are contained within the Constitution of the United States of America which is the moral North Star for all of us who had the privilege to wear the cloth of our nation. It’s that document that all of us wearing that uniform swear to protect and defend against all enemies, foreign, and domestic. Those who sacrificed themselves upon the alter of freedom the last two and a half centuries of this country must not have done so in vain. The millions wounded in this nations wars did not sacrifice their limbs, and shed their blood, to see this great experiment in democracy perish from this earth. No. We the American people, we the American military must never turn our backs on those who came before us. We will never turn our back on the Constitution. That is our North Star. That is who we are, and that is why we fight.”

Unless, apparently, you are a public-school child in a state where Republican politicians have decided that the classroom needs more state-sponsored scripture and less, you know, food.

In Texas, Bible passages have been added to the state’s mandatory public-school reading list. In Oklahoma, state leadership ordered Bible instruction for grades 5–12. Louisiana can now enforce its law requiring the Ten Commandments in every public-school classroom. Utah has added the Ten Commandments to the required list of historical documents for school curricula.

Let’s be clear: children are free to read the Bible. Families are free to practice Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, atheism, or any faith—or no faith at all. That is what religious freedom means.

It does not mean the government gets to pick one religious text, install it in public classrooms, and call it “education” while treating every child who believes differently like an afterthought.

And while these politicians are busy turning teachers into reluctant Bible-study coordinators, millions of children could lose access to free school meals as SNAP cuts and rule changes ripple through schools. Losing SNAP can end a child’s automatic eligibility for free meals and can also push schools out of the programs that let them feed every student. One analysis estimates 18.3 million students could be at risk of losing access to free school meals.

A family with two kids could face roughly $2,200 more in food costs over a school year if free school meals disappear. But sure—tell us again how the urgent crisis in America is that there aren’t enough Ten Commandments posters on classroom walls.

Maybe before legislators demand that every child memorize scripture, they should try reading the parts about feeding the hungry, caring for the poor, and not using religion as a prop for political power.

Because taking food from children while forcing religion into their classrooms is not moral leadership. It is cruelty with a Bible verse taped to it.