​An invasion of ants and autocrats

By Ed Raymond

fargogadfly@gmail.com

We need Paul Revere on a Harley: “ants and autocrats are coming!”

The Asian needle ant has been nesting in the American South since at least 1932. It probably hitched a ride on a freighter from a tropical Asian country delivering some exotic lumber used in furniture. This ant loves warm temperatures and rotten wood, in which it nests. They have discovered that climate change in the Divided States of America is not a hoax. The biting ants have rather suddenly invaded 20 states and are on the march to conquer more states with warm rotten wood. Ant people say they are not vicious nor aggressive, but their sting can hurt, itch, swell, and in some cases, cause an allergic shock known as anaphylaxis which can cause death. They are small, shiny, black and described as “elegant” by an ant loving entomologist!

By the way, the Saudis discovered the climate change “hoax” and added huge cooling systems to the Grand Mosque in Mecca where two million Muslims from around the world visit each year. In 2024, the new systems did not cool enough. More than 1,300 worshippers died on the Hajj pilgrimage when the temperature reached over 116 degrees. I wonder if there’s any Asian needle ants in Saudi Arabia. They would have to live in imported rotten wood.

The goosesteppers are marching across the country behind ants

And now in the Divided States of Trumpistan, we have fascist autocrats from Washington goosestepping their way on the Asian needle ant trails from their rotting nests. I found out that our General Asshole Leader (who loves military parades while having five cowardly deferments pinned on his chest, who can’t goosestep because he has bone spurs in his heels) has by executive order banned me from VA medical facilities and VA doctors because I’m a Democrat. I spent eight years in the United States Marine Corps Reserve, serving three years on active duty as commander of a heavy machinegun platoon, commander of a rifle company and regimental fiscal and supply officer managing an $80 million budget for the 6th Marine Regiment, 2nd Div.

I used FDR’s GI Bill to earn a master’s degree at Moorhead State Teachers’ College in 1958. We bought our first house in West Fargo in 1958 with a VA loan at 4.25%. I have never used VA facilities or staff in Fargo (or any place) because my jobs had the benefit of health insurance and later Medicare. But at my age, one never knows. I was eligible for VA care until the Great Leader (who needed 18 miles of fencing to protect himself from Americans while viewing the military he called “losers” and “suckers”) decided Democrats and unmarried veterans could be refused services by VA workers who worship his MAGA cult. According to new VA hospital guidelines by his executive order, Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals could refuse to treat unmarried veterans and Democrats. According to “The Chosen One’s” executive order titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” qualified doctors and other medical staff can be banned from working at VA hospitals based on their married status, political party affiliation or union activity. This section also bans chiropractors, certified nurse practitioners, optometrists, podiatrists, licensed clinical social workers and speech therapists.

The autocrats, fascists, sadists and evolution failures who came up with this order will try to follow the Asian ants to every state. The VA operates more than 170 hospitals, more than a thousand clinics which serve nine million patients annually with 26,000 doctors. The VA national press secretary, when asked to defend and explain the new rules, lied like the rest of the Trump administration — did not dispute them at all — but said this: “All eligible veterans will always be welcome at VA and will always receive the benefits and service they have earned under the law.”

Liar! When I read an article in The Guardian by Aaron Glantz headlined “VA hospitals remove politics and marital status from guidelines protecting patients from discrimination,” my mind flicked to my commanding general of the 2nd Marine Division Lt. General “Chesty” Puller, who had five of the Navy’s highest decorations, the Navy Cross, on his chest for heroism in wars instead of five deferments in his suit jacket for cowardice. I never asked him his political affiliation, but in the way he treated young Marine privates and old Marine master sergeants, I knew he voted Democratic. In his mind, they were the ants that gathered the food, bit the invaders and protected the nest for everybody. If some of his Marines were not treated at VA hospitals because of their votes, I almost pity the politicians who came up with that brain-rot idea. “Chesty” would attack while saying: “We’re surrounded? Now we got the bastards where we want them!”

There seems to be a lot of goosestepping going on behind the Asian ants

In 1926, Hitler formed Hitler Youth for good Aryan German Christian and Catholic children ages 6 through 18 and emphasized military training for ages 14-18. In 1933, appointed chancellor Hitler burned 20,000 books and took over the schools. In 2021, Trump expressed support for Moms for Liberty, a book banning group that harasses school boards across the country about “sexy” and “gay” books. The organization opposes diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs in schools and government programs.

Hitler created Kristallnacht, a night of broken glass of Jewish businesses, the burning of synagogues across the country and the transporting of 30,000 Jewish men to slave labor and concentration camps. In 2025, Trump and his Nazi shadow Stephen Miller, have started the deportation of millions of undocumented “aliens” to life imprisonment in El Salvador, thus destroying families in our hemisphere. Now uniformed masked government men in combat gear carrying weapons are arresting teenagers, waiters, maids and Democratic politicians in government buildings and refugees waiting on street corners for day jobs.

Hitler formed and used the Brownshirts, the Waffen SS and the Gestapo to complete The Final Solution. In 1945, Hitler head-shot Eva in their Berlin bunker and later swallowed the pistol barrel himself. Seneca was right: “All cruelty springs from weakness.”

Six justices say 33 million Americans are “instinctively disordered”

Chief Justice John Roberts of the U.S. Supreme Court in his majority opinion statements wrote: “Fierce scientific and policy debates about the safety, efficacy, and propriety of medical treatments in an evolving field should be resolved by the people, their elected representatives, and the democratic process.” To make a long story short: Whoever in hell told the court that judges were the best ones to judge scientific progress made by doctors and scientists facing a complex medical issue?

At least Pope Francis was smart enough to say: “Who am I to judge?” when he was exposed to the LBGTQUIA+ community. That “evolved” community has been around for millions of years. Several decades ago Norwegians wanted to know how many species practiced homosexuality. They exhausted themselves after discovering the top 1,500 species had gay communities.

Several of the top medical organizations of doctors, psychologists, and scientists studying the issue have said the court was terribly wrong in this decision: American Medical Association, American Psychiatric Association, Endocrine Society, World Professional Association for Transgender Health, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Psychological Association, National Association of Social Workers and the GLMA; Health Professionals Advancing LBGTQ+ Equality. These organizations prepared a joint statement that says it all: “Every patient should have access to the medical care they need. Health care professionals must be able to rely on their training, education, and expertise to provide appropriate care based on the need and values of each patient and their family, without bans or interference.”

Medical professionals have been treating transgender people since the middle of the 19th Century. As an example, Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld earned the title of the “Einstein of Sex” in early decades of the 20th Century. The homosexual son of a Jewish doctor, he founded the Institute for Sexual Science in 1919, where treated many patients who, for one reason or many, did not conform to strict German notions and the Catholic Church. He invented early sex hormones and sold them to patients and performed surgeries on those people who wanted to transition. Dr. Hirschfeld developed the idea and fact that masculine and feminine can mix together in one person and estimated there were more than 43 million possible varieties. He also preached that all forms of sexual desire and gender identification are natural. I wonder if any Supreme Court justice, including Roberts who wrote the majority opinion, knew anything about him. The most stupid and ignorant statement made by Roberts was that “the people, their elected representatives, and the democratic process” should make the decision about medical treatments of transgender people! In other words, people who don’t know a damn thing about the complex issue should make the final decision! Here we go again. Idiotas think politicians know more about abortion and gender fluidity than doctor and patient.

With a population of about 340 million today, that means we have 34 million people in the LBGTQUIA+ community. Since an estimated 10-12% percent of that population identifies as trans, that also means that 3.4 million of the 34 million are transgender people. And they are not all in California. North Dakota has about 8,000 and they are not all in Fargo. Minnesota would have close to 600,000 community members with 60,000 transgender people. Not all are in the Twin Cities.

Six intrinsically disordered Catholic justices made the wrong decision

There is no doubt that the Catholic Church’s teachings on the subject of sexuality is a major source of conflict and distress. It’s been a hellish mess for two thousand years and is not anywhere near truth yet. The Vatican often points out where it has a match with “some” parts of the Bible. I wonder how many Catholic justices believe that God checks out every fetus in every womb. If all sexual acts in the world must be open to procreation, particularly in the Catholic world, then the world is in a sexual mess. Ten percent of the fetuses who attain fresh air are born into the LBGTQUIA+ community. And God had checked them out in the womb. Is that “end of story?”

My Irish Catholic Church and Vatican expert Finton O’Toole recently wrote: “In a speech to the European Parliament. Pope Francis spoke of ‘a growing mistrust on the part of citizens towards institutions considered to be aloof, engaged in laying down rules perceived as insensitive to individual peoples, if not downright harmful.’ He was talking ostensibly about the European Union itself and more broadly about democratic governments. But he must have been aware that no institution has spent as many centuries aloofly laying down rules as the one he himself governed. His words were almost a definition of the traditional papacy.”

When will the six Catholics on the Supreme Court realize their decision is “insensitive, aloof, and harmful” to 10% of their own species?

Note: Trumpistan just shut down the trans suicide prevention hotline. Suicide risk is higher in the trans community than in the general population.