Open Letter from Tom Barksdale to Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) and staffers Rob & Ashley Adkerson, Nick Petromelis, and Ashleigh Padgett:
I am writing to express my opinion that you have betrayed your country no less than Benedict Arnold. A week or so ago, when I first started mentally drafting this letter, I had rejected that statement as maybe too harsh. Headlines of the last few days disabused me of any such concern. Below are four examples. Click here for a fuller version.
Let me introduce myself. I am a native Georgian, a graduate of the University of Georgia. I joined the U.S Army in 1967 (was not drafted), and I am a Vietnam combat veteran. I spent my career in Washington, D.C. as an employee of an agency involved in national security matters. I moved back to Georgia after my retirement in 2003.
Let me set the tone for this message with a few statements.
All the above, of course, are Republican Presidents or presidential candidates. I differed with them on policy issues, sometimes sharply. But I never questioned their innate integrity, honesty, and morality. I never doubted their basic intention was to serve the interests of the citizens of the United States. I never thought that their policies were intended to serve only their own selfish or partisan interests, or stemmed from deep character flaws, narcissism, and raging immorality. I never thought that electing them president would pose a clear and present danger to the survival of American democracy under the rule of law. I never assumed that their presidency would operate more like a Mafia family.
I also admire the personal attributes of Ronald Reagan. I can’t put him quite in the same position as those other Republicans, because some of his policies, in my opinion, crossed the boundary of the acceptable. But, as with the others, I did not question his innate integrity, honesty, love of his country and respect for its basic democratic values. In my opinion, Donald Trump is to Ronald Reagan what Judas Iscariot was to Jesus Christ.
I read and heed the writings of columnist George Will, one of the few true conservatives still around. Will, of course, left the Republican Party in 2016, when it became evident that Trump would be its presidential candidate. Will’s act is one key reason I have never had second thoughts about my loathing for Donald Trump. And, of course, it shines a revealing light on those Republicans who are either Trump’s True Believers or simpering cowards too afraid to publicly differ with him.
I wanted to put the above on the record before stating my purpose for writing. Earlier this month, I mailed a letter to Rep. Loudermilk stating some facts about the damage Americans would suffer from the indiscriminate, wholesale cutbacks in federal agencies being carried out by the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, with little or no legal authority. (I sent a copy to Loudermilk’s local office in Woodstock). I specifically discussed the impact on several key agencies, including the National Institutes of Health and one of its sub-agencies, the Centers for Disease Control. I asked Rep. Loudermilk and his staffers for comments. I have received no response.
I say to Barry Loudermilk, Rob & Ashley Adkerson, Nick Petromelis, and Ashleigh Padget: with the Republican assault on the agencies protecting our health and lives, you have crossed the Rubicon and become eager participants in actions that pose a clear and present danger to my health and to my life. As Trump’s puppets, you have lost all credibility as you play sick games with the lives of your constituents—and all Americans.
My original letter provides details, and David Wallace-Wells does better in the New York Times, under the headline “The Entire Future of American Public Health Is at Risk.” Key points:
Trump and Musk have gutted the Centers for Disease Control, our principal agency for limiting the impact of epidemics and doing the research to prevent future outbreaks. Administration officials have informed CDC leaders of plans to cut up to 10% of its workforce. Republicans have offered not one iota of scientific data to support their weakening of our health agencies.
In sum, Trump’s slash-and-burn government rampage has eviscerated the United States defenses against virulent epidemics and will have lasting effects on global health. See The Diseases Are Coming https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/03/diseases-doge-trump/681964/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=the-atlantic-am&utm_term=The%20Atlantic%20AM
The bottom line, Congressman Loudermilk, Rob, Ashley, Nick, and Ashleigh: I have watched over the past 10 years as you have joined Donald Trump in showing flagrant contempt for:
I have watched as you embraced and endorsed:
And now, by supporting Trump’s evisceration of U.S. public health institutions, you exhibit wanton disregard for human life, mine included. I am done trying to understand you. I do not know where you are coming from. I have traveled extensively, served with honorable young men in the United States Army, had a 30-year career in a large Washington bureaucracy. I have never before dealt with people like you who seem to lack any moral conscience. People who constantly tell lies, hurl insults at other human beings and inflict pain and suffering on them—without one iota of remorse or regret.
I also note, Congressman Loudermilk, Rob, Ashley, Nick, and Ashleigh: Your indifference to the global suffering stemming from the demise of USAID plays mightily in my harsh judgment of you. Here is one example out of many: “An estimated 1,650,000 people could die within a year without American foreign aid for H.I.V. prevention and treatment.” I have not seen a single comment by Rep. Loudermilk on the human tragedy unfolding in the wake of USAID’s demise. I am revolted to the core of my being that someone indifferent to all this is my U.S. Congressman.
You do not claim to be Christians, do you? That would add a massive dose of hypocrisy to your sins.
A growing number of activists and advocates oppose Kemp's bill, which he says is aimed at creating more balance between plaintiffs and defendants in Georgia’s court system, often citing an American Tort Reform Foundation ranking which listed Georgia as one of the top five “judicial hellholes” in the country in 2024. But as the bill makes its way through the Georgia legislature, "survivors of human trafficking, advocates for sexual assault survivors and the trial lawyers who represent them have been sounding the alarm about aspects of the bill they say could prevent nearly all victims from receiving justice through the civil system," according to the Georgia Recorder. They argue that if the bill becomes the law, it would effectively gut victims' ability to pursue damages.
In testimony before a legislative committee, survivors of human trafficking spoke out against the legislation, urging lawmakers to consider the impact that the bill's wording would have on the hotels and motels that turned a blind eye to trafficking survivors’ exploitation.
Question from a Vietnam combat veteran to Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) & staffers Rob & Ashley Adkerson, Nick Petromelis, Ashleigh Padgett: now that you endorse this additional denigration of a veteran, after you
to what lower level of hypocrisy can you descend, after demonstrating you put sucking up to Trump ahead of taking care of veterans?
Key moment Georgia Republican infuriated town hall
FULL STORY from Georgia Recorder
EXCERPTS:
Question to Rep. Barry Loudermilk and all the other Republican U.S. Representatives from Georgia: What are you doing about this? So far as I can determine, absolutely nothing. Your being a Trump lapdog means more to you than the welfare of Georgia farmers.
Women throughout the United States are suffering the horrific consequences of the termination of Roe v Wade. Some have died. Others are beginning to tell their stories of the physical and emotional pain inflicted on them, especially on those trying to navigate high-risk pregnancies. Georgia passed a restrictive abortion law in 2019, banning abortions after six weeks, except in special situations.
At a hearing held by U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff (D-GA) in Atlanta on September 16, two women described their harrowing experiences under the new law. Atlanta Journal and Constitution writer Patricia Murphy wrote it up under the headline “Georgia’s abortion law left these women in shambles.” Here is a summary of her article:
Mackenzie Kulik learned early on in her pregnancy that the fetus’ multiple deformities would prevent the child from surviving. She wanted to terminate the pregnancy, but did not qualify for an abortion under the “fatal fetal abnormality” exception in the Georgia law. Kulik traveled to Washington, D.C., to seek a solution, but she was stymied without a Georgia doctor’s referral, which she could not get because it would have been illegal under the new GA law.
She finally ended up laying on a dirty Washington sidewalk, in too much pain to stand, waiting for an Uber to take her to the clinic. “I felt like an animal,” she said. “Like I didn’t matter, like my baby didn’t matter.”
Yasmein Ziyad, a mother of one, described worrying early in her pregnancy that she was having a miscarriage, only to be told by her doctor that she was not — and that not hearing her baby’s heartbeat at six weeks of pregnancy was not necessarily abnormal. She was sent home and told to go on bed rest.
At eight weeks, her doctor confirmed she was experiencing a miscarriage, but he could not intervene with a procedure that could be interpreted as an abortion under the law. Ziyad was prescribed medication to speed the miscarriage, but after two and a half weeks of what she called excruciating pain, her doctor eventually needed to extract more from her uterus, which he did without pain medication. “I couldn’t get the care I needed, that would have spared me so much pain and suffering,” she said. “As a result of what I went through, we have given up on hopes of ever being pregnant again,” she said.
Pro-Publica has revealed another horrific story, this one about Amber Nicole Thurman, a healthy 28-year-old Georgia citizen. In 2022, she was planning to start nursing school when she found out she was pregnant with twins. She felt she needed an abortion to preserve her plans for a more secure future for herself and her 6-year-old son, but Georgia had enacted a 6-week abortion ban, and she’d just passed the deadline.
She waited, hoping the law would be changed, but eventually she took time off from work and borrowed a car in order to get a surgical abortion in North Carolina. Though she and her best friend woke up at 4 a.m. for the drive, heavy traffic caused her to miss her appointment. The clinic couldn’t hold Thurman’s spot, because it was inundated with women from other states where bans had taken effect. It offered her a medication abortion instead.
Medication abortion is usually safe and effective, but in a small percentage of cases, women end up needing either another dose of misoprostol, one of the two drugs in the regimen, or surgery. That’s what happened to Thurman. Days after taking her second pill, she was in pain and bleeding heavily. The clinic in North Carolina would have offered her free follow-up care, but it was too far away.
Eventually, suffering a severe infection, she passed out and ended up in a hospital in suburban Atlanta. She needed surgery, but doctors waited 20 hours to operate as her condition worsened, and she died. A state medical review committee ruled her death “preventable.” As in other states where women have been denied routine abortion care, Georgia’s ban includes an exception for procedures “necessary in order to prevent the death of the pregnant woman or the substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function.”
But as case after case has shown, hospitals aren’t sure how to interpret this language, especially with the threat of prison time hanging over everyone involved. So medical staff sometimes hesitate to act until the threat to a woman’s life is undeniable, at which point it may be too late. As it was for Anna Nicole.
Another example: In Ireland, an otherwise healthy 31-year-old woman died of septicemia in 2012 after doctors refused to treat her for a miscarriage as long as her fetus had a heartbeat. This proved too much for even staunchly Catholic Ireland, and her case helped galvanize support for a national referendum in 2018 to make abortion legal. It passed in a landslide.
Question: How many more stories of senseless suffering before these cruel laws become politically untenable?