Dear Friends,

The other day, my daughter challenged me to include more positive content in my weekly radio show, podcast, and blog. I’m gonna do that. I promise. But not today. Sorry, daughter.

If you scroll down you’ll see details about our two most recent Forums, where Charles and I discuss Natalie Harp, Anthony Fauci, Pete Hegseth, the First Amendment, and whether AI is more akin to the Manhattan Project or Jurassic Park.

But wait! In addition to the Farm and Food segments that Kathy and I do each week, there’s one other positive segment: a discussion of places where nature is recovering from desertification and deforestation. (That segment was my idea, not Charles’. Just sayin’.)

Before I wax all serious and somber on a topic we truly need to discuss, I’ve got one other bit of good news. Kathy and I just enjoyed our best-ever honey harvest — 190 pounds!

So if you’re part of our Des Moines-area audience, please consider a sweet purchase that helps our non-profit, Birds & Bees Urban Farm, pursue its work to teach people how to turn their yards into dinner. Contact Kathy at kathy@birdsbeesurbanfarm.org.

Ok, on to the less-sweet stuff. We gotta talk about madmen.

I once met a very nice madman, at a monastery in Ireland. I was 21 and living on my uncle’s farm. I needed a break, so I left for a week-long retreat at a Trappist monastery in County Tipperary.

There, I met Jerry, also on retreat. Jerry was an intense but harmless madman. His madness stemmed from a believe that he’d been ordained by God to bring peace to Northern Ireland.

Fair enough. A noble goal. Harmless enough — even after Jerry’s behavior turned bizarre.

Quite bizarre, actually. One evening, we went to a nearby pub. In walked a man wearing a trench coat, handing out copies of the IRA newspaper. Jerry lost it, yelled at the man, called him an infidel, and dragged him to the door intending to throw him out.

The attempt failed. Instead, Jerry and I were grabbed, picked up, and tossed out of the pub. That was how I discovered both flight and the unforgiving firmness of pavement.

Next morning, Jerry amped up his madness. He interrupted the monks’ prayer by donning a robe and prostrating himself at the altar. That convinced the Abbot to ask Jerry if he’d voluntarily commit himself to a psyche ward in Dublin. Jerry agreed, and I was commissioned to escort him there.

That’s the abridged story of my friend, Jerry. A madman, yes. But a benign, well-intentioned madman.

Alas, not all madmen are warm and fuzzy. Given enough power, a madman can be incredibly dangerous — existentially dangerous, as history has shown too many times.

I won’t recount the Who’s Who of history’s most deadly madmen, because you know where this is going.

Donald Trump. If he wasn’t a madman during his first term, he is clearly now off the rails.

As Trump consolidates power, he craves more and more. Thus the malaise of madness grows hungrier, deeper, ever more frightening.

I’ll share one of Trump’s most recent and disturbing acts of insanity.

In a Truth Social post on September 6, Trump sits on the deck of an imaginary Space Force vessel, scowling, his fingers on buttons. Two nuclear explosions on Earth can be seen in the background — implicitly detonated by Trump.

This is not something a sane person in a position of significant power would post. It’s madness — and madness with the frightening reality that Trump actually has the power to launch nuclear weapons!

Yes, a madman with his actual finger on the nuclear button. Trump doesn’t need the approval of Congress or even the military to launch an attack. He simply confers with top military advisers and then issues a direct order.

Which military advisors? Probably none who would restrain him. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has been purging the military of anyone he regards as a potential impediment to his demented view of US military dominance.

Hegseth, an avowed Christian nationalist, has said “[T]here’s a direct through line from the Old and New Testament Christian gospels to the development of Western civilization and the United States of America. … The other side is fueled by godless and toxic ideologies, foreign to the Western way of life, with intolerant hearts filled with rage and hate.”

Yeah, let’s blast the hell out of those infidels, Pete!

Nor can we count on Vice President JD Vance to insert a dose of sanity should Trump attempt to act out his Space Force fantasy. In a recent interview, Vance said, “I honestly can’t wait for the end times myself. I know where I’m going. I pray everyone else is ready. … What I’m trying to focus on is doing as much of God’s work as possible right now. And if that leads to the end times, OK.”

Yike! If Trump’s madness reaches nuclear-launch level, we probably can’t count on either Hegseth or Vance to walk him back from the brink.

Except for two important factors: youth and ambition. Vance hopes to succeed Trump as President. Who knows what Hegseth’s ambition is. But Vance and Hegseth are 42 and 46 years old, respectively, They’re half the age of the Madman in Chief.

Do two men in their 40s really wanna blow up the world? Maybe. But not quite yet. They’ve got too much life left in them, too much ambition. And they have kids.

An even stronger hedge against an act of nuclear insanity by President Trump was articulated recently by Robert Reich, who wrote that either “every last Republican at the federal level is treasonously irresponsible (which I really don’t want to believe) or they’re trying to ride things out until the election, and then they’ll take action.

“They’re afraid that if they do something to Trump now, the MAGA hordes will stay home on Election Day and they’ll all lose their jobs. So they wait until the election, for better or for worse, and then they join the Dems in invoking the 25th …”

That’s a great point. Presently, Republican elected officials and other assorted Party leaders remain terrified of offending Trump. After the election, which will almost certainly go badly for Republicans, they’ll be emboldened to either invoke the 25th Amendment or vote with Democrats to impeach Trump.

So, daughter, I’m really sorry I have to go on like this, but as humanity teeters on the edge of an existential precipice, those of us who see the danger must call it out.

Not just call it out. Act! All of us! Now!

The most important action we can take — right now, today, immediately — is to help a Democratic US House candidate running in a competitive district and a Democratic US Senate candidate running in a competitive state.

Let me reiterate that:

HELP A DEMOCRATIC US HOUSE CANDIDATE RUNNING IN A COMPETITIVE DISTRICT AND A DEMOCRATIC US SENATE CANDIDATE RUNNING IN A COMPETITIVE STATE.

By “help” I mean a lot. As much as you can. While I’m frequently (and justifiably) a critic of congressional democrats, Democratic control of the US House and Senate gives us a realistic opportunity to remove Trump from office.

Sure, things are scary. But now, more than ever, we need to act, engage, speak up. The next 50 days leading up to the election are crucial.

Thanks for reading, listening, and taking action. And if you’re a central Iowa resident, remember to support the local businesses and nonprofits that help underwrite this platform.

Ed Fallon

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