Show Me

“Where’s the beef?”

“Show me the money!”

A person might have to be a certain age to remember those phrases.  In 1984, Clara Peller, a grumpy little elderly lady, became famous for holding a hamburger and demanding to know where the beef was.  It was a part of Wendy’s advertising to show the public that they had the hamburger patties when other chains lacked any substance.  She demanded to know “where’s the beef?”

In a 1996 film, Jerry Maguire, Tom Cruise played a sports agent attempting to save his business by getting a hold-out football player, Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr.), a lucrative contract worthy of his talent.  He wanted a BIG payday.  Despite all the promises, Tidwell wasn’t going to believe it until he saw the actual money.  He demands proof.  “Show me the money!” 

Now in 2026 I have come to a point with our president and his constant fly-by-night word salads and promises to want some proof.  To the president I say “where’s the beef” and “show me the money”.  Promises, promises, promises . . . and nothing to show for it.

The president has made a lot of promises to the American people as a part of his “make America bigger and better”.  Part of those promises involve money in the form of dividends and rebates.  Under Elon Musk and his illicit Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), he and the president promised American citizens dividend checks from the downsizing of the government and the money it would save.  They promised that there would be checks for $5,000 per person from the trillions of dollars saved.  We, the people, are still waiting.  There hasn't been a check in the mail yet.

The other big promise straight out of the president’s mouth was a rebate for the tariffs he inflicted upon the rest of the world.  He promised these trade tariffs would raise trillions of dollars to lessen the national debt.  He promised $2,000 dollar rebate checks to lessen the fiscal impact upon the country’s citizens pocketbooks.  He promised it repeatedly . . . it was on a loop and that he constantly played whenever he felt pressure on his political future.  Haven’t seen that check in the mailbox either. There are no trillions of dollars being raked in.  The United States Supreme Court nullified his tariffs last week declaring that the president has no power of grounds to implement tariffs carte blanche.  It was illegal and against the Constitution.  And now he is claiming he doesn’t remember making such promises despite the fact there is numerous digital evidence of him making the promise on television.

“Where’s the beef?”

“Show me the money!”

Me and everyone else would like to know . . . where is the money?  After all, a promise is a promise.  This is the United States of America where we believe a person at his or her word.  Don’t we say that a person is “as good as his or her word”?  That might explain everything . . . the president’s words are worthless.  We know this president is a liar.  In his first term (2017-2021) there were 30,573 false and misleading claims–lies spoken by this individual in public.  It is well documented.  That is an average of almost 21 lies per day during his first term.  He hasn’t slowed down since . . . the man is a certified liar and is on a record pace to break his first term’s record of lies.  His first year of his second term–2025–has been called the “Year of Lies”.

So why wouldn’t we want proof?

“Where’s the beef?”

“Show me the money!”

Surely he can produce the proof to substantiate his promises.  He claims that our nation’s economy is the best it has ever been . . . that folks are moving up the economic ladder . . . that there’s money in the bank.  Egg prices are down.  Gas is under two dollars (basically in Iowa where none of us live).  Yeah . . right!  Proof it.

According to the president every policy, bill, law, and executive order has strengthened the nation’s fiscal outlook and standing.  DOGE saved trillions of dollars.  Tariffs raised trillions of dollars.  Money is coming in hand over fist for the good ol’ U.S.A.  That’s what we are being told.  Things are looking rosy.  That is why we have been promised dividend and rebate checks.  We are all reaping the benefits of this fiscal genius.

Except . . . the guy is a “fake” . . . a liar . . . an idiot.  He is driving our nation towards fiscal disaster and bankruptcy.  In his first term as president he increased the national debt by 39% or $7.8 trillion dollars.  In his second term he is doing even better as he has increased the nation’s debt by $2.17 trillion in the first year.  He’s spending like crazy when there is no money to spend.  That $2.17 trillion breaks down to $5.95 billion dollars a day, $248 million per hour, $4.13 million per minute, and $68,902 per second.  Those figures are from the United States Joint Economic Committee Report.  He’s supposed to be bringing the national debt down . . . saving money . . . with everything that he is doing.  The facts state otherwise.

The president promised DOGE would save at least two trillion dollars, thus the $5,000 dollars dividend checks were promised.  Reality is the the massive destruction of the government only saved at best $55 billion dollars.  That is not even enough to cover the $5,000 dollar dividends promised. Plus it cost the government $10 billion to cover the cost of all the “savings” cuts done in that one year.  There was no impact on the national debt beyond adding to it.  Pure genius.  The promised check vanished like the supposed savings created.  More importantly . . . where is that money?

The president promised that tariffs would bring trillions of dollars to the coffers and make us all better off . . . plus we’d get a $2,000 dollar rebate check.  So far it has only produced 5% of the government’s revenue.  Since taking office and imposing tariffs the nation has brought in $287 billion dollars–not trillions.  Turned out it was a tax on the consumer . . . a tax without representation.  Last week the United States Supreme Court struck down the president’s tariffs as illegal and unconstitutional.  Shut them down.  Plus it looks like the nation (us) will be responsible for the $175 billion refunds to those charged with the tariffs.  Something the president said would be tied up in court for a long time.  It is still going to end up on the taxpayer.  There ain’t going to be any rebate check anytime soon in this term, besides the president states he doesn’t remember promising rebates.  More importantly, where is the tariff money?

Maybe the “peace board” will bring it in at a billion dollars a pop for membership.  That’s what it costs to belong to this board–one billion dollars.  If you were invited.  I am still looking for my invitation.  The president is the chair and makes all the decisions, has all the power, and controls all of the money.  So far $17 billing has been raised.  The United States put up $10 billion and nine other nations put up the other $7 billion dollars.  Where is this money at?

Possibly, at the rate he pardons people for a one to two million dollar donation, the government’s treasury should be growing in leaps and bounds.  But, where is this money?

How about the oil taken from the illegal police action on Venezuela?  Oil the president says was stolen from us.  Oil that was taken and sold for $1.65 to 2.8 billion dollars.  Where is that money?

Where is all the money the president has stated he has raised gone to . . . where is it deposited . . . who has access . . . is it making a difference?  Where’s the beef?  Show us the money!  After all, he did promise a better life for all of us in a “bigger and better” America.  A promise is a promise.

Seems the only person seeing “bigger and better” is the president.  Since starting his second term the president has seen his wealth increase by $1.4 to 4 billion dollars in twelve months.  Nice for him.  Sucks for us as inflation goes up, the dollars plummets, and affordability is lost somewhere in the mess he has created.  But, that’s okay.  The man is generous . . . he doesn’t take a salary for his job.  Donates it.  The man makes $400,000 a year.  Has a $50,000 dollar expense account . . . $100,000 travel budget, and $19,000 entertainment budget.  Also he gets free housing, transportation, and health care.  How generous of him to donate his salary.  In the meantime he puts the burden on the taxpayers for his golf “habit”.  Taxpayers foot the bill for his golfing.  Since starting his second term that bill has been $71 to 110 million dollars . . . 97 out of 399 days or 24% of the time he has been in office is spent golfing.  It is estimated that the cost per trip is $3.4 million dollars.  Remember these costs are paid to him because he only golfs on courses he owns.  How generous.  One golf excursion is worth more than he is compensated in four years as president.  How generous of him to donate his salary.

With all of his boisterous talk of an improved economy based on fiscal genius and policies raking in the money, I have one question . . . where is the money?  Where is all this money the president is talking about?  Have you seen it?  I haven’t seen it.  The only thing I have seen is that the president, his family, and his wealthy friends and supporters are getting richer.  The rest of us are S.O.L. and he doesn’t care.  He hasn’t shown us anything beyond his ability to lie and destroy things.

Think about it . . . he hasn't shown us anything.  He hasn't shown us the money.  He hasn’t shown us an improved economy.  Hasn’t shown us all the peace he promised.  Hasn’t shown us the Epstein files.  Hasn't shown us anything. Except being offended when the people demand proof . . . evidence.  Where’s the beef?  Show us the money!

Let us step up like Clara Peller and demand to see the beef.  Let us demand like Rod Tidwell to see the money.  Lets hold the president to his promises of a “bigger and better” America for someone besides himself, his family, and his wealthy friends and supporters.  We deserve the truth though we may already know . . . it’s a lie.  We are talking about the president after all.

 

Doing the "Walk"

Birdie, our Border Collie Corgi mix, and I, have been on a roll lately with our daily walks.  In the past week, since retiring, I have determined that I cannot spend my retirement lounging in my recliner.  Though comforting, my mid-section is rebelling and making a move to be the predominant feature of my physique.  It is prepping me to be a department store Santa come Christmas and I won’t need a pillow to round out the costume.  With some hesitation and reluctance, some optimism, and a whole lot of prompting from the dog and wife . . . we transitioned to walking . . . lots of walking.  I figured out if I was going to walk I should go all in . . . both feet, literally.

It's not like walking hasn’t been a part of my life’s regime.  Until my wife retired a year ahead of me, it was my task to walk the dogs.  Four to five evenings–weather permitting, I walked the dogs.  Yep, that’s right–dogs, Birdie and Quinn (a tiny miniature Dachshund).  Such a combination is an adventure.  Quinn’s idea of a walk is from any room into the kitchen.  But she put up with it because she wanted to be where her sister was.  It was half walk, half drag . . . constant encouragement . . . and at times, pick up and carry.  At all times being stared down with a look of “what the hell!”  The point is that I walked the dogs.

Once my wife retired she finagled walking the dogs from me.  She convinced me to relax and rest after a hard day at work.  She’d walk the dogs, besides she needed exercise.  Who was I to argue? For over a year she became the primary dog walker.  The dogs didn’t complain . . . especially Quinn who recognized a downgrade when she saw one.  Less distance, less effort, and less time from napping.  It worked well . . . 

. . . until I retired.

Walking the dog duties have been split since I have retired.  Birdie walks with me.  Quinn protests with the wife as they attempt to walk.  Birdie gets longer and more vigorous walks with me.  Quinn, when she is not protesting, gets shorter and more pedestrian walks.  Birdie loves walks.  Quinn, at best, tolerates walks.  Remember she is a miniature Dachshund.  That means everything has to be just “right” for a walk.  There can be no wind.  No moisture of any type–no snow, no rain.  No weather.  It has to be perfect.  If forced to walk when she doesn’t want to, there are two results . . . she plops her butt down, spreads her front legs and dares to be pulled to walk.  We live on a dirt road and proof of resistance is well documented in the trial she leaves down the road.  This typically leads to the second result . . . she gets picked up and carried.  Which she enjoys and loves.  Either way the wife gets more exercise than she bargained for.  The bottom line is that the dogs get walked in some shape or form.

As I stated earlier, Birdie and I have been on a roll since starting.  We have walked all over the community and so far have not repeated a single route.  That is the nice thing about living in a small rural community in Montana . . . there are lots of places to go strolling.  Lots of variety in the landscape.  Lots of doggie and wildlife scents . . . lots of pee mail.  Birdie is on scent overload and I am combatting elderly tummy spread.  We are both happy.

At the same time, I worry.  I worry that I might kill my pup.  I stand at 5’10” in height.  Birdie stands 15 inches at her shoulders.  She is a small dog–that is her Corgi side.  My strides are much longer than hers.  Like every exercise optimist I use a Fitbit to monitor my physical activity.  It tells me how many steps I walk each day.  On our daily walks, Birdie and I are averaging 7,500 steps.  Well, that is what I average.  I imagine that Birdie averages two to three times more steps since she is so short.  In my estimation–in doggie steps, she is walking between 15,000 and 22,500 steps.  For the two of us that equates to about 3.7 miles.  We’ve been cooking it and we both sleep well at night.

Still, I worry.

Luckily her breeding makes her smart.  Probably smarter than me.  She does know her limits and is not afraid to let me know.  She either intensifies the pee mail reading, constantly stopping, and attempting to get every word of what she is sniffing.  Or she slows down to a crawl or Quinn pace/  Thus far our walks have not been a problem for her.  It’s tough to wipe the smile off her face at the end of our walks.

I’m not sure if Birdie and I will continue at our torrid pace.  The competitor in me says that we are just beginning.  That we are setting the baseline for walks . . . that the sky is the limit.  There is much of our area we have not explored . . . adventures not taken.  We have many walks ahead of us.  It is important.  Each afternoon, Birdie comes and sits at my feet and stares . . . watching for that moment, that moment that I move towards the door and utter those two words, “Let’s go!” It makes her day.  Together we are happy and filled with joy.  At this rate I won’t be playing Santa at Christmas.

 

Silent Genocide

Can’t say that I would argue with singer Billie Elish’s statement made when she accepted her 2026 Grammy Award for Song of the Year.  She stated, “No one is illegal on stolen land.”  This is in reference to the war being waged on immigrants by the Trump administration.  The land our nation claims is land stolen—not bought and paid for—from the original people who inhabited it.  History clearly documents the “land grab”.  In this way, we are all immigrants.  outside of Native Americans, all of us originated from somewhere else . . .came from somewhere else . . . immigrated here. 

 

I can’t argue with that because it is true.  Ms. Eilish caught some flack over the statement because it seems that her home—a multi-million-dollar mansion—sits on “stolen land”.  That land originally belonged to the Tongva Tribal Nation.  The tribe acknowledged this fact but stated that the singer has never contacted them about the land.  They appreciate the acknowledgement of the land as “indigenous” but question her sincerity.  They kind of see it as a “prayer and thoughts” sort of statement. 

 

No one wants to be called a hypocrite.  A day or two after the Grammy Awards, Ms. Eilish put out a statement about a recent ancestry test she took.  The test revealed that she had a small percentage of Native American heritage in her family background.  A DNA test. The test confirmed that she was 1/164th Native American.  Though she doesn’t agree, the implication is that “technically” she has a right to the land that her mansion sits on.  She acknowledges that being “native” is more than a number from a DNA test.  That just shows the person where he or she comes from.  Real proof comes in honoring the land, history, culture, and living communities. 

 

Though Ms. Eilish understands this, there are a lot of people who see her 1/164th score as validation of her indigenous heritage and place in a tribe.  Lots of people believe this.  They believe it because that is the great American myth and most are ignorant of history and reality. 

From the beginning, the goal of the people who settled here and formed our nation was the land.  To own the land, they need to remove the inhabitants already occupying it. They used concepts like the “Doctrine of Discovery” and “Manifest Destiny” to justify their actions.  Our nation was built upon these ideologies.  Colonialization—plain and simple. But to work the inhabitants either had to be removed, assimilated, or eliminated . . . they had to disappear.  

 

History paints the story if we want to delve deeper than the white-washed garbage the present administration wants to sell us.  From the beginning of our nation, the original inhabitants were to be removed—even extinguished.  Pushed westward from their lands, found, massacred, poisoned with disease, starved as their food sources were annihilated, rounded up, placed on reservations, made to assimilate, boarding schools . . . all designed to rid the land of these people.  To get rid of them.  Genocide.  History shows this movement of genocide.  

 

General Philip Sheridan in 1869 declared, “The only good Indian I ever saw is a dead Indian.”  This became “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.”  Richard Pratt, founder of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania (model for all boarding schools), in 1879, had this to say, “Kill the Indian, save the man.”  Both were staunch in their goals of getting rid of the “Indian problem” . . . both had their methods of genocide.  The goal was removal and the mans was genocide.  Look it up. Plenty has been written and is being written about it.  It is the wiping out of people and their cultures. 

 

Thank goodness our nation no longer practices genocide . . . right?  I suppose, considering the present administration’s immigration policies and activities, that statement is debatable.  It sure feels like genocide no matter how much this administration wraps it up in “red, white, and blue”.  If you ask the Native American tribes, they will tell you that genocide is alive and well.  Instead of blatant it is more subtle . . . almost silent, but it is still there.  Which brings me back to Ms. Eilish and this idea of DNA or blood as the definitive solution to who us a Native American. 

 

Blood quantum—a controversial, colonial-era policy measuring the amount of “Indian blood” a person possesses to determine Native American identity and tribal enrollment. 

 

The goal of blood quantum is not to quantify “Indianness” but to bring “Indianness” or “Indians” to the state of extinction.  To make them disappear.  This is not a scientific-based method—there is no science that grounds it.  The only “science” might be the fact that if this practice continues there will be no Indians/Native Americans remaining—no tribes—they will be eliminated through simple math.  Blood quantum is not real.  It is made up.  Created to extinguish Native Americans.  Silent genocide.  

 

Tailyr Irvine is a photojournalist whose work has been published in National Geographic, the New York Times, the Smithsonian, the Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal. She has hosted shows across the country.  She has been on the national Public Broadcasting System’s programs.  She is a registered member of the Salish and Kootenai Tribal Nation on the Flathead Reservation in Montana.  She shares the stories of life and culture from the Native side.  One story that intrigued and bothered her was about blood quantum.  The result was a documentary story, Reservation Mathematics: Navigating Love in Native America.  Ms. Irvine states that this “not real” issue “focuses on how the government-imposed system of blood quantum affects who Natives marry, who they have kids with, who they spend their life with and how this number dictates one of the intimate choices that we have.”  The end result is extinction.  Take a moment to watch her as she explains this silent genocide.  There is a short version at this link, or a longer version that explains it in greater deal at this link.  She tells the story well. 

 

Ms. Eilish’s statement pulled back the curtain hiding the long-held secret of genocide against Native Americans who were the original inhabitants of our nation.  It still exists.  It is still practiced.  Amazingly the Native Americans are a resilient people who have survived this continuing onslaught of purposeful extinction.  And, yes, it will continue.  As the Trump administration has demonstrated since Day One, there is an on-going cleansing of America hidden behind ridding our country of illegal immigrants.  It is “cleansing”.  It is an act of aggression.  An act of cruelty.  All aimed at ridding our nation of people of color. We witness it daily.  Because their skin and culture are not “white” . . . they must go. 

 

I have Native American friends who now carry tribal documents stating that they are American citizens.  Proof that they belong.  I am scared for them.  I am scared for my neighbor who is Hispanic.  He is a naturalized citizen of the United States.  A legal resident who has jumped through all the hoops, signed all the papers, and sworn allegiance to the country.  But I watch daily to see if unmarked vehicles will come, a knock upon his door, and him being escorted away.  Not only him, but others.  Not only people of color, but people of gender.  A couple, gay, live on the corner of the street.  The vile rhetoric and treatment against the LGBTQ+ have made me fear for them.  They are not wanted by the present administration.  Actions speak louder than words and demonstrate this fact.  No one is safe who is contrary to the present administration’s desires and whims . . . no one.  

These are scary times.  We are witnessing the act of genocide cloaked in patriotism . . . draped in “red, white, and blue”.  We cannot turn away.  We must ally ourselves with those who are being attacked.  If not . . . well, remember the words of Pastor Martim Niemoller: 

First they came for the Communists 

And I did not speak out 

Because I was not a Communist 

Then they came for the Socialists 

And I did not speak out 

Because I was not a Socialist 

Then they came for the trade unionists 

And I did not speak out 

Because I was not a trade unionist 

Then they came for the Jews 

And I did not speak out 

Because I was not a Jew 

Then they came for me 

And there was no one left 

To speak out for me