This past Sunday was Mother’s Day. Normally, I use Dustin’s Dispatch to talk politics, culture, and whatever fresh chaos the news cycle is feeding us. But once in a while, it’s worth setting all of that aside to talk about one of the people who made it possible for me to have an opinion about anything in the first place.

For this piece, my mother will remain nameless. Not because she’s mysterious, but because she’s every bit as familiar as she is extraordinary.

She did the kind of work that rarely comes with applause.

She showed up.

She took care of business.

She carried more than her share with grace.

And she did it without asking for a trophy or ticker-tape parade. Just love, family, and the chance to build something better for her kids.

My mom’s story would probably look familiar to a lot of people. Same hopes. Same plans. Same ideas of how life is supposed to go.

Then I showed up and threw a monkey wrench into the whole damn thing.

And I’d love to tell you I hated it. That I resented missing school. That I stared out the hospital window wishing I was in math class.

But let’s be honest.

When you’re a kid and you get to skip school every other Friday for a surgery called an esophageal dilation, it starts to feel less like a medical calamity and more like a scheduled oil change. That’s what I called them, mostly to shrug off the questions. You know, like a Honda that needs routine maintenance, except the “maintenance” is in my throat.

And here’s the part that makes me sound a little ridiculous: post-op food was my reward. Since you can’t eat after midnight on surgery day I was always starving.

I’d come out of anesthesia feeling like I got into a bar fight with a belt sander, but I still knew exactly what time it was. It was “chow down on whatever I want” time.

My go-to was a Cuban crab roll from a hole-in-the-wall spot we’d hit on the way home from the hospital. Even if they’d stretched a bit too far and my throat hurt like hell, I couldn’t resist. That sweet burn. Those not-so-subtle spices. It tasted like victory, with a side of bad decisions labeled “hot sauce” in the empty bag next to me.

I was born without an esophagus. A decade earlier, I probably would not have made it. That was the unfortunate reality my mom and I found ourselves in. Back then, we were a long way from my Friday afternoon Cuban crab rolls.

If you want to know what saved me, look no further than my mom’s dogged determination and refusal to accept no as an answer.

Doctors had rules. Hospitals had visiting hours. Bills had numbers. She simply didn’t care. I was her priority, and nothing was going to get in her way.

Her son was going to make it through these medical challenges, and that was that. He was going to beat the odds and get the chance to grow up like every other kid his age.

Those early years were a blur of hospitals, specialists, and long nights that never seemed to end. She was always there. And I’m sure she made herself memorable to more than one doctor or nurse along the way.

Some people follow instructions.

Others don’t accept “no” for an answer.

They see barriers as obstacles to charge through.

My mom falls into the latter category.

More than 400 surgeries later, she’s still the same person. Steady. Present. Unshakable. The kind of strength you don’t see on Instagram, but you feel in every part of a life that keeps moving forward.

I’m also blessed she met the man who became “Dad” to my younger sister and I.

He’s an excellent attorney, which means he’s spent plenty of time in court for companies like Ford or Mercedes. And yes, even once for me too.

In my defense, I was never trying to end up in a courtroom. But when I did, he had a fierce tenacity reserved only for his top clients.

Thankfully, and due in large part to our mother, my sister and I stayed clear of any serious trouble. But like my mom, he was and remains there anytime we need.

These days, with my autoimmune diagnosis and long-term treatment, I’ve also been blessed with another strong woman in my corner: my wife.

I don’t take that for granted.

If you’ve ever been seriously sick, you learn quickly who can stand in the fire with you. Between my wife, my mom, my dad, my sister, and a long list of others, I’ve got a kick-ass team behind me. Think the 1980’s Miracle on Ice or Tom Brady’s 7-ring run with the Patriots and Bucs and you’ve got some idea of my unbeatable bunch.

But, even now, I still can’t imagine being in my mom’s position, especially in the early years. Even having lived it, I look back and wonder if I would have had her courage when the moment demanded it.

She didn’t just endure. She pushed forward. She overcame. She conquered.

Her determination showed up in her work, too. She’s built several successful businesses. She went on the road when my sister and I were young because keeping a roof over our heads was not optional.

Being a single mother is not some Hallmark card.

It’s a grind.

It’s a thousand decisions made under pressure.

It’s sacrifices that nobody sees.

My mom dealt with all of it without wavering. She met it head-on every single time.

Now she’s spearheading her latest venture, with my dad right by her side: an apple orchard. It started with my grandfather, and I know he’s watching all of this with absolute pride and a whole lot of love.

That’s what she does.

So with the world spinning faster and louder every year, here’s my reminder to myself, and maybe to you too: take a step back and appreciate what you have. Appreciate who you have. Especially the people who built your foundation when you were too young to understand what that meant, or how much it would matter later.

No matter what gets put in front of me, I know I’m walking on the steadfast foundation my mother fought to lay for me and my sister.

I’m grateful for her. I’m grateful for my wife. I’m grateful for my dad and sister and so many others. In good times and bad, they show up, and I’m blessed to have them.

And on Mother’s Day, that’s the point.

Hold tight to the people you love, in good times and bad, and never let go.

The NHL playoffs are underway. Baseball is just getting started. The NFL Draft is here. But college football and basketball? Gone until fall and winter. That leaves long summer nights, cold beers, and plenty of time to think about what the hell happened to college sports.

I’ll tell you what happened. NIL happened. Or more accurately, the NCAA’s spectacular inability to manage NIL happened.

Let me be clear. I have zero problem with college athletes making money. These kids generate billions in revenue for their schools while the NCAA cashes checks and lectures everyone on “amateurism.” The hypocrisy was always the problem. Walter Byers, the NCAA’s first executive director, wrote a book in 1995 blowing the whistle on the whole scam. The NCAA signed its first TV deal with NBC back in 1952 and by the 1960s had a football contract rivaling the NFL’s. Athletes saw nothing. For decades. So yes, players deserved to get paid.

But what we got instead of a fair system is a slow-motion train wreck.

When California passed the Fair Pay to Play Act in 2019, the NCAA had every opportunity to get ahead of it. They could have built a thoughtful framework. Instead, they sat on their hands until July 2021, slapped together an “interim policy,” and let 30 different states write 30 different sets of rules. The result? A $917 million Wild West in year one alone, with nobody at the wheel.

Now picture this. Arch Manning just took a helmet-to-helmet shot on a third-and-long. He’s picking himself up off the turf, sweat dripping, blood on his jersey. Thirty seconds before halftime, the broadcast cuts to commercial. There he is again. Same kid. Fresh haircut, perfect lighting, modeling Warby Parkers like he’s on the cover of Glamour. That doesn’t exactly scream gritty Saturday afternoon gridiron battle, does it? Manning pulled in an estimated $6.8 million in NIL money last season. More than Auburn’s head coach makes. The kid has deals with Warby Parker, Raising Cane’s, Google Gemini, Red Bull, and EA Sports. He out-earned all but 35 head coaches in college football and hadn’t even finished his first full season as a starter. I guess some believe it really is “in the genes” or “jeans” as the case may be.

Meanwhile, booster-funded NIL collectives have turned what was supposed to be a branding opportunity into thinly veiled pay-for-play schemes. The NCAA’s College Sports Commission has rejected over 500 deals worth nearly $15 million for lacking a “valid business purpose.” Translation: the checks had nothing to do with marketing and everything to do with recruiting.

And then there’s Olivia “Livvy” Dunne, the former LSU gymnast who, for reasons passing understanding, became the highest-paid female athlete in college sports. Nearly 14 million social media followers. A peak NIL valuation north of $4 million. An estimated $9.5 million earned over her college career. I genuinely cannot imagine how she managed to rake in that kind of dough. Total mystery. But when one gymnast’s Instagram presence is worth more than most schools’ entire athletic budgets, maybe it’s time to ask what game we’re actually playing.

The transfer portal made it worse. What used to be a commitment to a program for four years is now professional free agency with a backpack. Players jump from school to school chasing the highest bidder. Coaches don’t build teams anymore. They rebuild rosters every offseason. Over 6,700 Division I players entered the portal during the last window alone. Loyalty? Development? Team culture? Those words belong to a different era.

And the coaches? They’re bailing too. Nick Saban, arguably among the greatest college football coaches who ever lived, walked away from Alabama and publicly begged Congress to act. “I don’t care who has to get off their butt, but do something,” he said. Tony Bennett, who built Virginia into a national championship program, retired at 55. When legends are quitting, you don’t have a personnel problem. You have a systemic one.

Here's the part that really burns. NIL was supposed to level the playing field. Instead, it created a brand new class system. The top athletes at the priciest programs rake in millions while the vast majority of college athletes see little to nothing. Up to 90% of revenue-sharing money flows to football and men's basketball. Women's athletics? Swimming, golf, track and field? They’re getting the same raw deal they’ve always gotten, just with embossed paperwork and incomprehensible text.

Small schools are also getting crushed on more than just the scoreboard. They can’t compete with the donor networks and booster collectives that power programs like Alabama or Ohio State. The talent gap is widening. Some of these smaller programs are already facing enrollment drops and budget cuts. NIL might be the thing that finally pushes them over the edge.

Then there are the “street agents” who’ve crawled out of the woodwork. Unregulated middlemen, often not even certified agents or lawyers, brokering deals and skimming off the top. Joe Martin from the Texas High School Coaches Association called it “almost at a crisis.” These people are targeting high schoolers now. Let that sink in.

And Congress? Still debating. The SCORE Act would create a national framework, but it’s stalled because politicians can’t agree on whether athletes are employees. That question is at the heart of the mess and it’s not getting answered quickly. President Trump signed an executive order in April targeting “fraudulent NIL schemes” and threatening federal funding. Bold move. Whether it actually changes anything remains to be seen.

So what do we do? Here are two ideas that might actually help.

First, lock the transfer portal down. One or two free transfers per academic career. Max. You pick your school, you commit. Otherwise, you lose eligibility. That’s it. Enough with the Blackwater mercenary bazaar. No more revolving doors. Force players and programs to invest in each other again.

Second, mandate that a meaningful percentage of NIL revenue-sharing dollars go to non-revenue sports. Call it 25%, call it whatever makes sense. If we’re going to blow up the old system, at least make sure the women’s soccer player and the men’s swimmer aren’t left holding an empty bag while the starting quarterback drives a new Escalade off the lot.

Look, the ratings are fine. College football viewership is up. March Madness shattered records this year. People are still watching. But watching and caring are two different things. Right now, college sports is a car wreck that’s hard to look away from. That’s not the same thing as the sport being healthy.

The NCAA had decades to fix this. They chose profits over players. When the courts finally forced their hand, they chose chaos over leadership. And now everyday fans, the ones who paint their faces and drive six hours for a rivalry game, are stuck watching something that looks less like the sport they fell in love with and more like a corporate bidding war with helmets.

Something’s gotta give. And it better give soon.

Let me get this straight.

You donate your hard earned money to an organization that says it’s fighting the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, and white supremacists. Noble cause. You feel good about it. You tell your friends. Maybe you even set up a recurring monthly gift.

Then you find out that same organization was secretly cutting checks to the Klansmen.

That’s the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2026. And if the federal indictment unsealed this week is even half true, this isn’t just a scandal. It’s one of the most brazen frauds in the history of American nonprofits.

On April 21, a federal grand jury in Montgomery, Alabama hit the SPLC with 11 counts including wire fraud, false statements to a federally insured bank, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel stood at the DOJ podium and laid it all out. The FBI investigated. The IRS Criminal Investigation division assisted. Two civil forfeiture actions were filed on top of it.

This isn’t some political stunt dressed up in a press release. This is a grand jury indictment.

Here’s what prosecutors say happened. Starting in the 1980s, the SPLC ran a covert network of paid informants embedded inside extremist groups. Internally, they called them “field sources” or, charmingly, “the Fs.” Between 2014 and 2023, the SPLC funneled more than $3 million in donor money to people affiliated with the KKK, the United Klans of America, the National Alliance, the National Socialist Movement, the Aryan Nations, and the American Nazi Party, among others.

Let me do the math for you. That’s $3 million from people who thought they were dismantling hate groups going directly into the pockets of people running hate groups.

One informant alone pocketed over $1 million while affiliated with the neo-Nazi National Alliance. Another was paid more than $270,000 and was literally part of the online leadership chat that planned the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. That informant attended the rally at the SPLC’s direction and helped coordinate transportation for attendees. Read that again. The SPLC helped put bodies at Charlottesville.

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To hide all of this, prosecutors say the SPLC opened bank accounts under fictitious entity names like “Fox Photography” and “Rare Books Warehouse” to launder the payments. They allegedly lied to banks to keep the accounts open. They never told a single donor where their money was actually going.

“The SPLC is manufacturing racism to justify its existence,” Blanche said at the press conference. “Using donor money to allegedly profit off Klansmen cannot go unchecked.”

Patel was even more direct: “They lied to their donors, vowing to dismantle violent extremist groups, and actually turned around and paid the leaders of these very extremist groups.”

Now, the SPLC isn’t going quietly. Interim CEO Bryan Fair acknowledged the informant program existed but called the charges politically motivated. “Today, the federal government has been weaponized to dismantle the rights of our nation’s most vulnerable people,” Fair said. He argued the intelligence gathered from informants was shared with law enforcement and “saved lives.”

Maybe. But here’s the thing. You don’t get to secretly fund the Klan and then play the victim when someone notices. That’s not how this works. If your intelligence operation requires you to commit bank fraud, create shell companies, and lie to donors about where their money goes, you don’t have an intelligence operation. You have a criminal enterprise.

And let’s be honest. This has been a long time coming.

Conservatives have been sounding the alarm on the SPLC for years. The organization’s infamous “hate map” has labeled mainstream conservative and Christian groups as extremists simply for holding traditional viewpoints. FBI Director Patel severed the Bureau’s ties with the SPLC last year, calling it a “partisan smear machine.” House Republicans held hearings in December 2025 alleging the SPLC coordinated with the Biden administration to target Christian and conservative Americans. Even the Alliance Defending Freedom has been documenting the SPLC’s transformation from legitimate civil rights organization into what one of its own former employees described as “a highly profitable scam.”

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The SPLC’s entire legal department resigned in 1985. Think about that. Nearly every lawyer walked out the door four decades ago because they saw what this organization was becoming. And yet the donor money kept flowing. The media kept citing the “hate map” like gospel. And behind the scenes, the checks to Klansmen kept clearing.

This is an ongoing investigation. Patel made it clear that “all individuals involved” are targets, meaning former leadership could face personal charges. Two forfeiture actions are on the table. A conviction would strip the SPLC of financial gains from the alleged fraud.

The SPLC built a brand on telling America who the bad guys were. Turns out, they were funding them for some time, aiming to further divide Americans along racial lines, something the elitists at our own Universities have also been pushing with their “Critical Race Theory.”

Based on information released on the federal indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center, do you believe their goal was to further divide the country along racial lines.

Your voice matters, leave a comment below to share your viewpoint.

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Somewhere in a boardroom in Charlotte, North Carolina, someone at Duke Energy looked at their company’s nearly $5 billion in annual profit and thought, “You know what? Not enough.” And so here we are. Again. Another rate hike. Another round of everyday North Carolinians being told to tighten their belts so that a monopoly utility can loosen theirs.

Duke Energy is asking the North Carolina Utilities Commission to approve an 18% increase in residential electric rates over the next two years. For the average customer, that works out to roughly $34 more per month by 2028, according to WRAL. That’s on top of a 22% increase in electric bills since 2020. Let me do the math for you: your power bill has gone up by nearly a quarter in six years, and Duke wants to pile on another fifth. If you’re keeping score at home, that’s what we in the business call “getting hosed.”

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But don’t worry. Duke says it’s for “reliability and economic growth.” Because nothing says economic growth like forcing retirees to choose between keeping the lights on and buying their medication.

The numbers tell a story that Duke’s PR team would rather you not read. According to the Energy and Policy Institute, rate changes alone have increased the typical monthly bill by about $50 since 2020. That’s a jump of nearly 45%, and that’s before you even factor in hotter summers or colder winters driving up usage. Duke Energy Progress kept 17.4% of the revenue it collected from customers as profit in 2025. That’s not a public service. That’s a business model built on a captive audience.

And that’s really the crux of the issue, isn’t it? You don’t get to choose your power company. Unlike your cell phone provider, your internet, or where you buy your groceries, electricity in North Carolina and across the country is a monopoly. Duke provides it. You pay for it. End of discussion. There is no Verizon vs. AT&T of the power grid. There’s Duke, and there’s “sit in the dark.” Those are your options.

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At a standing room only public hearing before the NC Utilities Commission in Raleigh, residents made it painfully clear what these increases mean for real people.

“For someone like me, there is no way to simply absorb an 18% increase,” said Fran Lynch, a senior living on a fixed income. “My income does not go up when Duke’s rates go up. When my bills go up, something else gets cut: medicine, groceries.”

Another resident, Rick Martin, put it even more bluntly: “That means I will have to decide what to cut out, food or medicine, for a company that makes billions. Fifteen percent doesn’t mean much, but for retirees, it’s life-changing.”

Let that sink in. Food or medicine. For a company that just posted nearly $5 billion in profit in a system without any competition. If that doesn’t make your blood boil, check your pulse.

To make matters worse, a good chunk of this rate hike is earmarked for Duke’s capital expenditures. That’s corporate speak for “we want you to pay for our infrastructure upgrades that we’ll then write off on our taxes.” Duke recently unveiled a $103 billion capital spending plan, the largest of any regulated utility in the United States, according to Utility Dive. They’re already deploying more than $1 billion in capital every single month. And guess who’s footing that bill? Spoiler alert: it’s not anyone in the boardroom.

Oh, and here’s a fun wrinkle. Industrial customers, including the data centers that are gobbling up energy at record rates, are only looking at a 12% increase over two years. Residential customers? Eighteen percent. As one resident at the hearing said, “Big data should pay their own way. We shouldn’t be footing their bill.” Hard to argue with that logic.

State Sen. Jonah Garson didn’t mince words either: “North Carolinians cannot afford a 16% to 18% rate hike on their base rates right now.” Governor Josh Stein and Attorney General Jeff Jackson have both opposed the proposed increase, according to the Charlotte Observer. At least someone in Raleigh is paying attention.

But opposition from politicians means nothing if the Utilities Commission rubber stamps this like it has in the past. This isn’t a Republican or Democrat issue. This is a “regular people vs. corporate greed” issue. Your 80 year old neighbor on a fixed income doesn’t care about party lines when she’s deciding between air conditioning and her heart medication in July.

Look, I’m a capitalist. I believe in free markets, competition, and the ability to earn a profit. What I don’t believe in is a system where a monopoly with no competition can continuously raise rates on a product that people literally cannot survive without, all while posting billions in profit and spending $103 billion on projects that customers are forced to subsidize. That’s not capitalism. That’s a shakedown with a utility bill attached.

Power ranks right up there with water and the roof over our heads. These are not luxuries. These are the bare minimum requirements for survival in modern America. And when the company providing one of those essentials operates with zero competition and near total impunity, something has to give. It shouldn’t be your grocery budget.

It’s time for the North Carolina General Assembly, the Governor’s office, and the Utilities Commission to step up and do what they were put there to do: protect the people of this state. Not the shareholders. Not the lobbyists. The people who flip that switch every morning and pray the bill doesn’t break their bank.

Enough is enough. Say it with me, North Carolina. Enough. Is. Enough.

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Earlier this month, four astronauts strapped into a capsule the size of a camper van, rode a column of fire into the sky, and flew farther from Earth than any human being in history. Artemis II didn’t just circle the moon. It shattered Apollo 13’s 56 year old distance record, reaching 252,756 miles from Earth at its farthest point. Four people sat inside that tiny spacecraft, hurtling through the void at over 60,000 miles per hour, and looked back at the pale blue dot we call home.

And the world cheered. For a minute.

Then we went back to doomscrolling.

Look, I’m not here to rain on NASA’s parade. The Artemis II mission was, by all accounts, a triumph. Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, and Mission Specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen launched from Kennedy Space Center on April 1st and splashed down ten days later in the Pacific Ocean. Koch said she screamed with pure joy when that hatch opened. Glover described watching a fireball of plasma engulf the capsule during reentry and thinking, “Is it supposed to be that big?” The whole thing was gutsy, inspiring, and undeniably American.

But here’s the question nobody in Washington wants to answer: What now?

Because we’ve been here before. Literally. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon in 1969. The entire planet stopped and watched. It was supposed to be the beginning. Instead, it became the peak. We went back a handful of times, planted some flags, hit some golf balls, and then just... stopped. Apollo 17 was the last crewed mission beyond low Earth orbit. That was 1972. Let me do the math for you. That’s 54 years of going absolutely nowhere.

Fifty four years.

The Jetsons promised us flying cars and robot maids. We got TikTok and subscription fees for our thermostats.

Now, to be fair, we did get two genuinely world changing innovations in that half century. The internet and artificial intelligence. The internet rewired civilization. It put a library, a shopping mall, a post office, and a casino in your pocket. It kept the global economy from total collapse during COVID. It made remote work possible, turned teenagers into millionaires, and gave everyone a megaphone, for better or worse. And no, I don’t mean Al Gore’s internet.

AI is the second revolution, and it’s happening right now. It writes code, diagnoses diseases, passes the bar exam. It’s exciting and terrifying in equal measure. But here’s the thing that bugs me. Both of those breakthroughs happened largely in spite of our government, not because of it. The private sector dragged us into the future while Congress debated naming post offices.

Victor Glover said something during the mission that stuck with me. As the crew orbited the moon on Easter Sunday, he looked back at Earth and told the world: “In all of this emptiness, this whole bunch of nothing we call the universe, you have this oasis, this beautiful place that we get to exist together.” He called on people to remember “who we are, and that we are the same thing, and that we got to get through this together.”

Beautiful words. Words I genuinely believe. But “getting through this together” requires leadership that actually leads.

We can send four people around the moon. We can build spacecraft that withstand plasma fireballs and travel at speeds that make your head spin. We can push the boundary of human exploration farther than it has ever gone. But we can’t fix crumbling bridges. We can’t make insulin affordable. We can’t agree on a budget without threatening to shut down the government every six months.

The technology exists to do extraordinary things. Artemis II proved that. The mission hit all ten of its science objectives. The Orion spacecraft, named Integrity by its crew, performed flawlessly. The astronauts observed color variations on the lunar surface that satellites can’t detect. Human eyes, it turns out, are still better than cameras at some things. There’s a metaphor in there somewhere.

Because that’s what’s missing. The human element. Not in space, but here on the ground. We’ve got politicians on both sides of the aisle who can barely see past the next election cycle, let alone the next giant leap for mankind. AI is about to reshape every industry on the planet, and our elected officials are still trying to figure out how Facebook works.

Artemis II was a win. A big one. But a win only matters if you build on it. Armstrong’s steps were supposed to be the beginning, and they became a dead end for half a century. We can’t afford to let that happen again.

So here’s the challenge, and I’m stealing it from the crew themselves: Don’t let this record stand for long. Not just the distance record. The record of wasted potential. Of bipartisan inaction. Of letting our greatest achievements collect dust while we argue about nonsense.

We went around the moon. Again. The question isn’t whether we can go further.

It’s whether we have the will to.

I spent my childhood admiring the military and government institutions. I adored everything they stood for. My sister and I, along with neighborhood friends, waved American flags on our street after September 11th. But the world has changed since then. President Trump brought “patriotic populism” to the forefront in the wake of the “Tea Party” movement during the Obama administration. 

President Trump’s distrust of the government revealed deep flaws within our institutions, only levied by the increasingly radical behavior of the Democratic party. Beyond this, the United States had at the time of his election been in two seemingly unending wars, faced an economic collapse, and had [and has] a highly non-inclusive media environment in the age of the internet and social media. The bottom line is Americans in both parties are angry, and only our institutions can save us.

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The institutions have let the American people down. From the Treaty of Versailles to Abu Ghraib, the institutions have let the American people down, time and time again. The difference is that there was a more ingrained and inherent trust in the institutions of our government post-WWII, that is until the economic collapse of 2008. It’s not the case today. Both parties lack trust in each other and the government itself.  

The Role of the President

President Biden, for his part, has done little to quell divisions in either party or among the American people more broadly. This is likely due to him merely being a puppet of the Democratic party. With few thoughts of his own and lacking support from hardline members of his party, his hands are largely tied. With his advanced age obvious to all, there is likely little appetite for an internal fight. He is not the great unifier he promised to be on the campaign trail; instead, he is the great capitulator to the extreme members of his party, whether his dementia-riddled state realizes it or not. While Biden remains asleep at the wheel, the country continues running in two different directions. On Inauguration Day, a mere 6-months ago, a CBS News poll found that “54% of Americans say the biggest threat to our way of life isn't economic collapse, natural disasters or foreign invasions — but our own fellow Americans.” Little has changed in the 6-months since he took office. 

One can’t help but think of the words from the Declaration of Independence: “when in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

No one should argue that we are in the midst of a Civil War or separation, but we are as divided as at any point in American history. That could be due to the American people not having anyone to trust at the helm of power, especially those behind the scenes. 

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Americans, like most around the world, have always lacked trust in politicians. But, trust in non-political institutions held a respected place in our democracy, at least until recently. Some examples include the botching of the pandemic by the NIH and CDC, the FBI’s mistakes in the investigations into both Hillary Clinton and President Trump, soaring violent crime in many cities throughout the US… just to name a few. 

Regaining Trust

So how does the government regain trust among its citizens? Government agencies and others have to return to their traditional apolitical roots. They have to regain their independence from politics and, thereby, the trust of the people. That insulates our political system from the whims of the mob and political ideologies. It seems unclear how they do that at this juncture when so many within the federal government lean toward a singular political ideology. Still, something must be done to restore confidence. First, the federal government must hire talented individuals from beyond the sanctum of the largest cities, especially those within DC. 

Beyond that, there has to be action taken against “so-called” journalistic entities and social media outlets that operate largely without any regulation, either against libel or other legal action, when erroneous smear campaigns are presented on their platforms. If social media platforms want to ban users from giving their opinions, Section 230 should not apply. Moreover, media outlets like Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, and others should not be allowed to blatantly attack anyone without sufficient evidence. That evidence should be provided upon request. Media outlets should be the prevailers of truth, not beholden to their advertisers and their next buck. 

While all of these recommendations are unlikely to occur, they should be fought for and receive bipartisan support in certain instances. The problem we face is much more minor with the politicians; they tend to follow the crowd. The institutions follow them, as they’re their bosses. We have to change the fourth estate of government, the media, and what has become of the media and social media. We could put simple regulations in place with the political will to do so, but it would require the will to do so. ᴰᴰ

Do you believe the editorial discretion of the big tech firms (i.e. Google, Twitter, Facebook, etc) have taken their power too far? Do you believe they should be more harshly regulated to prevent potential violations of the First Amendment?

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Let me save you some time.

If you’re looking for another sanitized, corporate-approved newsletter that tells you everything is fine? Keep scrolling. This isn’t that.

Dustin’s Dispatch is my place to get things off my chest. The stuff I’m thinking about while scrolling the news at 6 AM, the conversations I wish more people were having, the takes I can’t keep to myself anymore. I’ve always had opinions. Now I’ve got a place to put them.

This publication is built on one idea: regular people deserve straight talk from someone who actually is one. No ivy-covered think tank. No corporate sponsor whispering in my ear. Just a guy with a laptop and an opinion.

So what exactly are you signing up for?

Glad you asked.

What You’re Getting Into

News and Current Events. The headlines move fast. The analysis behind them is usually garbage. I dig into the stories that actually matter to everyday Americans. Not the ones cable news recycles for 72 hours to fill dead air. A bribery scandal shadowing an Ohio Senate race. ActBlue’s own lawyers admitting they may have misled Congress about foreign donations. You know, the stuff the mainstream press conveniently leaves scattered on the floor. I pick it up.

Politics. Washington is a circus and both parties are selling tickets. Every week there’s a new scandal, a new resignation, a new reason to wonder if anyone up there actually works for us. Staffers warn each other about which lawmakers to avoid. Lobbyists write the bills. And we’re supposed to act like the system is working? Please.

I’ll call out the corruption, the incompetence, and the theater. Both sides. But I’m not going to sit here and pretend there’s some magical “both sides are equally bad” equivalence. I’m a conservative. I’ll say that upfront. But my loyalty is to the people, not the party. There’s a difference.

Culture. Here’s where it gets spicy. We live in a country where DEI training programs lecture employees about “white privilege” and “toxic masculinity” while the DOJ and EEOC simultaneously flag those exact same programs as potentially creating hostile work environments. You should read that again.

Meanwhile, a whole generation of is being told ambition is a character flaw. Merit is a myth. Achievement is something you apologize for. I’m going to talk about that.

Technology. AI is not a buzzword anymore. It’s a wrecking ball. Goldman Sachs says it’s already wiping out thousands of jobs a month in the U.S. and Gen Z is taking the hardest hit. BCG projects over half of all American jobs will be reshaped in the next two to three years.

Let me ask you something. Who in Washington is preparing for this? Anyone? Because from where I’m sitting, politicians on both sides are sleepwalking into an economic earthquake they couldn’t explain if you handed them a flashcard. I’ll cover the tech that’s changing our lives and hold the people who should be doing something about it accountable. Not to mention what the next iPhone’s going to look like.

Sports. Not box scores. Maybe a few fantasy picks. I cover the intersection of sports and culture. Like how NIL turned college athletics into a bidding war so absurd that the President of the United States signed an executive order called “Urgent National Action to Save College Sports.”

Let me do the math for you. When the White House has to intervene in college football recruiting, the adults left the room a long time ago.

So Why Subscribe?

Because you’re tired of being talked down to. You want someone who does the homework, brings the receipts, and still makes you laugh while the world burns around us. The news shouldn’t require a decoder ring or a graduate degree in doublespeak.

Dustin’s Dispatch lands in your inbox with the kind of analysis that respects your intelligence and your time. Sharp. Substantive. And yeah, a little sarcastic.

Here’s the Deal

A free subscription gets you in the door. You’ll get a taste of what I’m doing here, and a lot of the content will be free of charge. I think you’ll like it.

But if you want the full experience? The deep dives, the unfiltered takes, every piece of content I publish? Go PAID. It’s $10 a month. Or save yourself a couple bucks and grab the annual subscription for $100. That’s less than a dollar a day for someone to actually tell it like it is.

When was the last time you got that deal anywhere?

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Welcome to the Dispatch. Buckle up.