They think because of Biden’s mistakes that USDA have left the gate open and are ready to bolt through

A ruthless faction inside the horse show world thinks the current moment offers them cover. They believe confusion in Washington and misinterpretations of recent rulings mean they can slip back into the shadows and continue the same cruelty they have practiced for half a century. They are already acting like the barn door has been cracked open.

They are wrong.

For more than fifty years, this faction has perfected one brutal formula: chemical burns, chains, pressure-shoes, stacks, weights — agony engineered to force the grotesque, high-stepping “Big Lick” movement that wins ribbons, prestige, and big money. A torture kit masquerading as tradition.

Congress outlawed this barbarism on December 9, 1970, when President Richard Nixon signed the Horse Protection Act into law exactly fifty-five years ago. Six years later, President Gerald Ford moved to strengthen it — calling soring “clearly inhumane” and a “heinous practice” — then warned the industry that if it refused to police itself, Washington would. These weren’t liberal crusaders. They were Republican presidents standing squarely for law, order, and decency.

The industry ignored them. Washington let the issue drift. Followed by decades of industry-controlled inspectors wholooked the other way while the chemical burns festered under layers of saran wrap and showring polish – showring pens of pain where horses flail their equipment draped legs in the air as if walking on hot coals.

Half a century has passed, and the cruelty continues. The only thing that has changed is the sophistication of the cover-up and the aggressiveness of the political machinery protecting it—darker, slicker, more deeply embedded in influence and insider games. And now, this same faction is attempting to twist the present moment into the false narrative that they are finally free to operate again.

But, the truth at the core of the Big Lick is simple enough to fit on a bumper sticker: It does not exist without pain. Every honest USDA inspector knows it. Every veterinarian who has seen a horse’s raw, blistered pasterns knows it. Every former trainer who escaped the racket knows it. Even members of Congress who pretend otherwise know it.

These same insiders openly admit soring gives them competitive advantage — and then claim it is “unfair” when the law removes that advantage. You cannot design a competition that rewards pain — and then complain when the pain gets banned. There is no sportsmanship in that argument. Only confession.

Former Big Lick trainer Carl Bledsoe, a third-generation insider who left when his conscience finally outweighed the trophies, has said plainly: “There is no way physically possible for these horses to perform the desired gait without soring.” Convicted trainer Barney Davis put it even more bluntly: “You’re not going to win if you don’t sore them. A horse will not walk on his hind legs unless he’s sore. That’s just common sense.”

But it’s the whole business model.

Pain in the barn.
Ribbons in the ring.
Wash the chemicals off.
Repeat.

And the horses suffer—noble animals that helped build this country.

Meanwhile, this tiny pain-dependent sliver of one breed keeps insisting that it is essential to America’s $177 billion horse industry supporting 2.2 million jobs. That is fiction. Ending the Big Lick would not dismantle the horse industry. It would dismantle one corrupt corner that has never learned how to compete with integrity.

But this faction doesn’t rely on horsemanship or training talent. It relies on political protection — a network of lawyers, lobbyists, and legislators who have spent decades rescuing the Big Lick every time it approaches accountability.

USDA tried to break the cycle in 2024 when it issued a long-overdue update to the Horse Protection Act regulations. Predictably, Biden’s team botched the rollout, but the core reform was the first serious update in decades: ending industry self-policing and creating a federally overseen cadre of independent inspectors. The rule also included bans on the stacked shoes and leg chains long tied to soring.

The industry responded with more lawsuits. In Texas, a federal judge struck down the device bans on procedural grounds—not because USDA lacked authority, and not because soring is legal, but because the wrong administrative process was used. Critically, the judge upheld the centerpiece reform: ending industry self-policing. Neither side appealed. It stands.

In a second case, the same court temporarily blocked USDA’s scar rule but only for the plaintiffs. The faction immediately seized on these rulings, twisting them into exaggerated claims that enforcement had been dismantled, that oversight no longer existed, and that they were once again untouchable. None of that was true—yet the misinformation spread exactly as they intended.

At the 2025 Tennessee Walking Horse Celebration, the consequences were immediate. Announcements circulated suggesting reduced oversight. Entries reopened. Horses arrived in the ring crab-walking and flinching with unmistakable signs of soring. Industry-designated inspectors could have acted. USDA officials could have acted. They didn’t. And when a USDA official appeared on-site for a ceremonial function, the faction seized on it instantly, spinning it as proof that oversight was collapsing and that their old tactics were once again safe to employ.

This is how a corrupt system survives: not through explicit orders, but through distortion, implication, and the opportunistic twisting of any procedural moment into the claim that the barn doors are open.

State agriculture departments played their part, amplifying Big Lick messaging designed to mislead ordinary horse owners into thinking the HPA targets them. It doesn’t. The law targets one thing and one thing only: deliberate, pain-based gait manipulation.

Make no mistake: the industry strategy — lawsuits, pressure campaigns, misinformation, and political gamesmanship — is designed to hollow out the Horse Protection Act without ever repealing it outright. This is the swamp in its purest form: the barnyard swamp.

And now comes the part they fear most.

The industry should be more frightened now than at any point in its twisted history, because Donald J. Trump is the one man they cannot manipulate, mislead, or lull into complacency. They think they can hide behind legal fog and procedural theater — but Trump sees straight through that kind of act. He is exactly the kind of leader who takes a manufactured crisis and turns it into a historic win, exactly the man who can seize an opportunity to do something truly great and unexpected. If the soring racket thought the old playbook would work on him, they have miscalculated in spectacular fashion.

There is a clear path forward, and the Big Lick crowd knows it: the Prevent All Soring Tactics (PAST) Act. And Donald J. Trump is the one leader with the power, influence, and national backing to drive it into law. It passed the House twice with overwhelming bipartisan support. It would end stacked shoes, chains, masking agents, and self-policing. It would put real USDA inspectors back on the ground and establish real penalties.

Drain the Barnyard Swamp.
Pass the PAST Act.
Enforce the law America wrote fifty-five years ago.

To the soring racket: your time is up.
Don’t let the barn door hit you in the ass.

America’s had enough. Protect the horses.

The humble nickel has become a casualty of the green energy boom…

The U.S. nickel has been the Mint’s quiet nightmare, the raw melt of these coins is very simple math, now costing 13.78 cents to produce and distribute, it’s worth more as scrap than money, a financial loss per coin that’s been transpiring since 2006, exposing the government’s relentless fiscal waste.

The humble nickel has become a casualty of the green energy boom, surging cost of materials stemming from skyrocketing prices for its core metals, 75% copper and 25% nickel, driven by global demand in EV batteries. With ~67 million EVs produced worldwide to date (through Q3 2025), 17.3 million in 2024 alone, and >20 million projected for 2025, burning millions of taxpayer dollars all while the purchasing power of this coin dwindles to near-worthlessness.

The process with which the U.S. Mint follows to produce nickels year-round at its Philadelphia and Denver facilities, is automated but highly tedious, involving some 300–400 employees across circulating coins, with 100–150 of these individuals directly on nickel runs. With all those employees working on the nickel, the Mint still lost $17.7 million on 112.8 million coins in 2024, the 19th straight year of no accountability wasteful spending.

To clearly contrast, a profit is possible, dimes cost just 5.76¢ to make but carry a 10¢ face value delivering the Mint a tidy 4.24¢ profit per coin. This nickel nightmare didn’t happen overnight, but ballooned due to rising metal prices, driven by demand for copper and nickel in EV batteries which continue to push the price per piece higher, and higher each year. This is not just a simple fix, the Mint just can’t switch materials without new laws, it’s bound to the 1965 Coinage Act that requires Congressional approval. Vending machines, parking meters, and cashier drawers still demand massive amounts of these coins, so the losses keep multiplying.

Intensifying this inertia, the U.S. Mint lacks an official PAC, federal rules bar agencies from such fundraising, and policy sway falls to neutral lobbies like the American Numismatic Association, leaving DOGE’s efficiency drive stonewalled. Bottom line, these losses pile up to tens of millions in taxpayer waste annually, funds that could build schools or repair roads. Critics point to Canada, which ditched pennies in 2012, saving $11 million per year via 5-cent rounding with no economic fallout. In the U.S., penny production ends in 2026, saving $56 million per year, and the nickel should follow. While DOGE flexes its legislative muscle, the nickel’s saga rolls on.

On January 20, 2025, his first day back in office, President Trump formed the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) via executive order, a short-term advisory group, ending July 4, 2026, and rebuilt from the U.S. Digital Service. Aimed at $2 trillion in cuts, DOGE achieved wins like exposing Social Security fraud (e.g., payments to deceased individuals) and rolling back business regulations, claiming $205 billion saved by August 2025.

Yet it never touched the nickel, blocked by the 1965 Coinage Act, the Mint’s lack of lobbying power, and internal chaos. Elon Musk served 130 days, departing May 29, 2025, amid intense scrutiny from Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ron Wyden. While Musk entered with clear intent to cut waste and modernize government, the senators unleashed a firestorm over his unelected authority, potential conflicts, and compliance with Senate confirmation rules concerns that fueled a partisan backlash and crippled DOGE’s mission.

The coin’s enduring paradox, 5 cents in name– nearly three times that in cost, exposing deeper governmental dysfunction, where commodity spikes and legal rigidity, like the 1965 Coinage Act, beat more common sense driven solutions by using cheaper metal or rounding to 10¢. Just this year, the U.S. finally followed suit by halting penny production, in May 2025, the Treasury placed its last order for penny blanks, with the Mint set to cease manufacturing by early 2026, saving an estimated $56 million annually after years of 3.7-cent losses per coin.

The nickel should follow suit, its melt value already exceeds 6 cents, and phasing it out with similar rounding to the nearest dime could reclaim tens of millions more for taxpayers. Experts push for cash-back incentives or slow elimination, but Washington’s traditions won out, for now. Every time you hear nickels jingle in your pocket, remember, real fixes need Congress, not taxpayer subsidy. Until then, the nickel will keep rolling, at taxpayers’ expense.

Surely there are defendants more self-conscious and image-obsessed than Roger Stone, who is on trial in federal court in Washington on charges of lying to Congress and witness tampering, but none could possibly take greater delight in transforming the daily slog through the courthouse doors into their own personal fashion show. Stone, who was an adviser to President Trump, may be ensnared by the judiciary system, but he has not relinquished himself to it. The court may call him defendant, but he remains the magnificent peacock.

The veteran political consultant and fashion blogger strolls daily into U.S. District Court wearing his signature round sunglasses, his platinum hair gleaming. He arrives with an entourage that includes his wife and sometimes his daughter. They are in serviceable and appropriate attire. Often, it is complementary to his. He is spit-shined for glory. His clothes are eye-catching without being obnoxious. His suits, with their soft shoulders and nipped waists, proudly stand apart from the shapeless sack suits favored by most Washington men. He buttons his suit coats just so: a double-breasted jacket, always; a three-button one, only the middle. He likes a glen plaid and a pinstripe, but he spent the first week of his trial mostly rotating from charcoal gray to dove gray to banker ink.

He wears a spread collar — sometimes even opting for a more dramatic cutaway — which again sets him apart because his brethren tend to favor the more familiar and noncommittal semi-spread. All that extra room at the neck makes space for a more dramatically knotted tie. Of course, he wears French cuffs. That’s simply what one does.

Stone puts flair into mixing his patterns, a bit of chest-thumping panache. He pairs a dotted tie with a striped shirt, a striped shirt with a paisley pocket square, a plaid suit with a polka dot pocket square. But then there was the day he went full “Mad Men” and paired his dark suit with a white shirt, dark tie and crisp white pocket square.

Stone doesn’t simply walk into court. He makes an entrance. His wife holds on to the crook of his arm. He finds the camera lens with his eyes. He struts. Perhaps he’s carrying a sheath of paper — folded the long way and clutched jauntily in one hand. Or he has one hand in his pants pocket. He’s nonchalant, as if to say, “Court? Eh.” He arrives with smiles and waves, and with the demeanor of someone who’s not on trial for serious charges that could send him to prison but is instead on his way to a leisurely lunch for which he is self-indulgently overdressed.

Roger Stone usually has style. His outfit after his arrest shows a deflated man.

With his clothes, Stone has set himself apart from the grind, the dreariness, the quotidian. He’s a man whose expression — whether facial or aesthetic — doesn’t suggest stress or worry. Some men in his situation might swaddle themselves in humility; he has wrapped himself in sartorial pride. There’s nothing humble about his attire. It is pointedly superior.

Stone is back in the political fight — back in the public relations battle of images — after the indignity of being arrested in a predawn raid of his Florida home earlier this year, after which he stood in front of a federal courthouse in Fort Lauderdale wearing a pair of shlumpy blue jeans and a too-short golf shirt. The feds knocked Stone back on his heels. This is his fashion revenge.