USAID For EPIC FURY: What a difference a year makes
4/17/2026
When cooler heads prevail
I was asked at my Christmas open house this winter what I thought “would happen in 2026.”
I replied that the administration would simply become even more itself, increasing the outrage and the grift, accelerating dishonorable acts one after the other ahead of the midterms for maximum chaos and personal aggrandizement and enrichment until the GOP lost Congressional control In November or other corrective influences intervened.
This was on December 28. On January 3, the United States removed Nicolas Maduro from power in Venezuela. That military operation, while tactically impeccable, resulted in no real benefit for the people of Venezuela; the regime’s vice-president was simply slotted into the leadership position. The White House urged global oil conglomerates to reinvest in Venezuelan oil production; so far little has taken place although the lifting of sanctions on Venezuelan oil sales has resulted in a 14% increase in production.
Venezuela’s socialist/communist government, which remains in place, gifted $500 million in oil to the United States in January. Inexplicably, the administration stashed the proceeds from this transaction in a Qatari bank account, not the U.S. Treasury. The popular pro-democracy opposition leader remains on the sidelines, although her Nobel Peace Prize sits in the Oval Office, where our President happily took it from her in tribute.
What was that for?
On January 6, 2,000 ICE and CBP agents were deployed to Minneapolis, joining the 1,000 who had arrived in December for “Operation Metro Surge.” On January 7, American citizen and mother Renee Good was fatally shot by ICE. On January 24, American citizen and nurse Alex Pretti was fatally shot by CBP.
Throughout Operation Metro Surge, DHS posted more than 70 photos on its website of the “Worst of the Worst,” illegal immigrants in Minnesota whose pictures were posted along with their names and a list of the crimes they had allegedly committed. I searched Minnesota and federal court databases, along with registered sex offender databases and could not find a single match of a posted name with a single documented criminal charge.
Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who shot Good, is under internal investigation by DHS. Raymundo Gutierrez and Jesus Ochoa, the CBP agents involved in the shooting of Pretti, are the subject of a DOJ civil rights investigation. No charges of any sort have been filed against Ross, Gutierrez or Ochoa. Federal authorities refuse to share any documents or evidence with the State of Minnesota.
It is morally unacceptable for our government to shoot us in the name of immigration control. It is morally unacceptable for our government to post individuals’ names on a government website and make false claims about crimes they committed to justify terrorizing a community.
DHS would remove the on-scene commander, Greg Bovino, from Minnesota in February, replacing him with the so-called White House “border czar” Tom Homans (Homans has no official position requiring Senate confirmation). Homans quietly wound down Operation Metro Surge and canceled a similar operation in Maine.
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem was removed from her office on March 5, after widely publicized reports of financial mismanagement and an alleged inappropriate relationship with “senior advisor” Corey Lewandowski, a member of the administration’s inner circle, but no Senate-confirmed role in government.
Before our eyes, the President has grossly overhauled the Department of Justice to punish his enemies while weakening key law enforcement capabilities in counterterrorism, cybercrime and counterespionage. It’s no accident that every revenge indictment against Trump’s enemies has been thrown out for incompetence or lack of grounds, and that FBI Director Kash Patel’s own personal email account has been hacked by a pro-Iranian hacker group (as confirmed by DOJ).
Just as importantly, about half of the Jeffrey Epstein files remain sealed, despite promises from former Attorney General Pam Bondi that they would all be released over a year ago. Bondi was fired April 2. On April 9, First Lady Melania Trump made a stand-alone press announcement from the White House that she had no friendship with Jeffrey Epstein or Ghislane Maxwell. She made no such declarations about her husband.
This administration has an ethics problem. It is not a coincidence that more than 2,500 attorneys have resigned from the Department of Justice, and 800 FBI agents have departed. The United Kingdom has managed to defrock royalty over Jeffrey Epstein. Yet we couldn’t manage to search his damn ranch (30 minutes from my house) until March of this year.
On February 28, the United States launched Operation Epic Fury in coordination with, and at the urging of, Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traveled to Washington and convinced the President to attack Israel in conflict with existing U.S. intelligence and standing foreign policy, putting U.S. forces and their families in the Gulf region at immediate risk.
Over $1 million has been paid out by the Navy Marine Corps Relief Society to Navy families having to evacuate U.S. Navy facilities in the region with no more notice than “take what you can in a backpack.” They are still stranded with whatever temporary lodging and arrangements they could cobble together while this kleptocratic administration figures out what this epically moronic operation is for, and how the hell to get out of it.
This conflict has sunk the President’s approval ratings under 40%, increased inflation to 3.3%, alienated our European allies further, and exposed character flaws in the commander-in-chief that are sending many of his long-time supporters in search of an off-ramp.
I remember the experience of the first war accessible with 24-hour cable news coverage in 1991. This is the first war accessible with 24-hour unfiltered Presidential live-tweeting. It’s not a step forward. Donald Trump’s complete lack of self-discipline combined with his ignorance of foreign affairs and overall tone-deafness have taken a situation that calls for resolute gravitas and turned it into seven weeks of Saturday Night Live scripts.
It can be okay to set a deadline for your opponent and then extend it. But after you do that four more times (some experts say there have been as many as nine extensions for Iran depending on how you track it), the other side quits taking you seriously. And a social media post in the middle of the night threatening to wipe out an entire civilization….reads unhinged.
I believe the biggest corrective tipping point for America came April 12 with the mind-boggling post by the President of an AI-generated image of himself as Christ. I don’t need to explain why this is not okay. It was the culminating disgrace of an ongoing clash between this administration and the Vatican.
For his part, Pope Leo XIV is just doing what a Pope should be doing: proclaiming the Gospel in a way that applies to today’s world and current events. And this is really making Donald Trump, newbie Catholic Vice President JD Vance, and even Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth cranky. The Pope doesn’t mention any of them in his statements. But this administration just can’t seem to stop talking about Pope Leo.
As for me, I think this part is just fine. If this White House is paying any attention to Pope Leo, it can only be a good thing. It shows they are paying attention.
Back to the Trump-as-Jesus post. After losing alt-right influencers Alex Jones and Tucker Carlson over the Iran war, Trump lost many of his faith-based MAGA followers by proclaiming himself the Savior on Orthodox Easter. Perhaps some of them were looking for justification to repudiate the President after all the other affronts. Maybe it is blasphemy alone that pushed them over the edge. Everyone has their limit.
Even as it unravels, the Trump 47 administration is not without small but important self-corrections. They are likely not enough to save the midterms. The most striking example yet so far of the administration listening to the adults in the room is the implementation of the naval blockade in the Persian Gulf.
This is by far the most sensible action taken yet in this Charlie Foxtrot of a foreign intervention. Our Navy is very, very experienced in enforcing sanctions and interdicting proscribed commercial traffic. Someone, somewhere, explained the key talking points on the impact this blockade would have and somebody, somewhere, authorized it. Iran only has onshore storage capacity for 13 days’ production of oil; a prolonged blockade would force it to shut down its oilfields which could set back production for months or years.
Within hours of the commencement of the blockade on April 13, Iran announced willingness to suspend uranium processing for five years.
And with that, dear readers, this stupid, pointless conflict might end, and we can go back to where we were on February 27. Well, sort of. Iran will still be run by a militant theocracy, oil prices will be higher for the next three to four quarters, the U.S. will need 12-14 months to restock its missile and interceptor stocks against a Chinese, Russian, or North Korean threat, and we will likely have sunk $40 billion on the effort.
Good thing we put USAID in the woodchipper – a year of USAID operating costs was roughly equivalent to one Operation Epic Fury. At this rate we can now afford one dumb-ass net-zero international conflict a year and still break even.
It’s only about seven months or so until early voting for the midterms. I see hope. Because American voters are smart, run their household budgets, and a lot of us go to church (and those of us who don’t are generally ethical). Keep on keepin’ on, Mister President. We’re all watching. And the con might be up.
Merritt Hamilton Allen is a PR executive and former Navy officer. She appeared regularly as a panelist on NM PBS and is a frequent guest on News Radio KKOB. A Republican for 36 years, she became an independent upon reading the 2024 Republican platform. She lives amicably with her Democratic husband north of I-40 where they run one head of dog, and one of cat. She can be reached at news.ind.merritt@gmail.com.