Law Office of Richard J. Arendt

04/05/2026

MAGA has sold me on The SAVE Act…😏

03/21/2026

His spaceship's brain died 100 miles above Earth. So he became the spaceship.
May 16, 1963. Gordon Cooper was alone in a metal capsule barely larger than a phone booth, hurtling around the planet at 17,500 miles per hour. He'd been up there for over a day. Twenty-two orbits. Everything running smoothly.
Then the warnings started screaming.
First, a faulty sensor insisted the capsule was plummeting toward Earth. It wasn't. Cooper switched it off. Annoying, but manageable.
Then came the real problem.
A short circuit killed the entire automated guidance system. The system that kept the ship oriented. The system that was supposed to calculate the precise angle, timing, and trajectory to bring him home alive.
Without it, reentry became a mathematical nightmare.
Come in too shallow and the capsule bounces off the atmosphere like a stone skipping on water — back into the void with no fuel to try again. Come in too steep and friction turns the ship into a meteor, incinerating everything inside within seconds.
The margin for survival was measured in fractions of a degree.
And every computer designed to hit that margin was dead.
Down at Mission Control, NASA engineers stared at the telemetry in helpless silence. They could see everything failing. They could do absolutely nothing about it.
Cooper didn't panic.
He uncapped a grease pencil and drew reference lines directly onto the inside of his window — crude, hand-drawn guides to track the horizon. He looked up through the glass at the stars he'd spent months memorizing before launch, using their positions to manually orient the capsule by eye.
Then he set his wristwatch.
Because when the machines die, you become the machine.
He did the math in his head. He cross-checked it against the stars outside. He watched the Earth rotate below. And at the exact moment his calculations told him — confirmed by constellations and a Timex on his wrist — he fired the retrorockets.
The capsule shuddered violently. The sky outside turned into fire.
For several long minutes, superheated plasma surrounded the ship, blocking all communication. No one on Earth could reach him. No radar could track him. He was alone inside a fireball, trusting math he'd done with a pencil and a watch.
Then the parachutes deployed.
Faith 7 splashed down in the Pacific Ocean just four miles from the recovery carrier — the single most accurate landing in the entire Mercury program.
The man with a wristwatch and some pencil marks on a window had just outperformed every automated system NASA could build.
We live in an age that worships technology. And technology is extraordinary — it puts us in space, connects continents, saves lives.
But Gordon Cooper's story is a quiet reminder of something we forget too easily:
Behind every machine, there still has to be a human being who can look out the window, think clearly when everything is breaking, and make the call.
The final backup system was never the software.
It was never the automation.
It was him — a pilot with a pencil, a watch, and the stars.
And it still is.

03/15/2026

It starts at the top.

II’ll leave this here. has compiled an incredible video that serves as a stark warning to corrupt billionaires in the Epstein files, starting with Donald J. Trump. You know what to do.

03/11/2026

03/06/2026

Your child can name Steve Jobs in seconds.
Ask them about Roy Clay Sr..

That pause?
That silence?
That’s the gap we’re responsible for closing.

Roy Clay Sr. was born in Kinloch, Missouri — the oldest incorporated African American community in the state. No indoor plumbing. Segregated schools. Jim Crow rules enforced not just by law, but by humiliation.

As a boy, he learned what racism cost before he fully understood the word.

One summer day in Ferguson, after yard work, he bought a soda and sat outside because he wasn’t allowed to drink it inside the store. Police handcuffed him, drove him toward Baileys Pond, and left him with a warning never to return.

He walked home alone.

When he told his mother what happened, she didn’t offer bitterness. She offered direction:

“You will face racism the rest of your life, but don’t ever let that be a reason why you don’t succeed.”

He carried that sentence like armor.

Roy graduated from Saint Louis University in 1951 with a degree in mathematics — becoming the first African American to do so. There was no “computer science” degree yet. The field hadn’t even been named.

His first interview at McDonnell Aircraft ended with a blunt dismissal: “We have no jobs for professional Negroes.”

So he taught himself to code.

He went back.
And this time, they hired him.

By 1958, Roy was at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, developing radiation tracking systems for potential nuclear fallout. While future tech icons were still children, Roy Clay was writing software at the highest levels of national science.

In 1965, David Packard recruited him to Hewlett-Packard.

At the time, HP didn’t sell computers.

Roy Clay changed that.

He became the first Director of HP’s Research and Development Software and Hardware Group and led the team that built the HP 2116A — the company’s first computer — bringing it to market in 1966. It helped shift computing away from room-sized mainframes toward something more accessible.

He wasn’t just in the room.
He was building the room.

In the 1970s, venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins chose Roy as their computer consultant. He evaluated companies like Intel Corporation before they became giants. The architecture of Silicon Valley carries his fingerprints.

And he didn’t forget where he came from.

As one of the highest-ranking Black executives at HP, he actively recruited from historically Black colleges and universities, including Morehouse College. Representation wasn’t symbolic to him. It was structural correction.

After leaving HP, he founded ROD-L Electronics, developing safety testing equipment essential to the personal computer revolution. The surge protectors and safety standards that protect home electronics? His work helped make that world trustworthy.

Then he stepped into civic leadership.

In 1973, Roy Clay became the first African American elected to the Palo Alto City Council — later serving as Vice Mayor. A Black boy once barred from sitting inside a store was now governing the heart of Silicon Valley.

In 2021, St. Louis opened the Roy Clay Sr. Computer Lab in his honor. The state that once tried to limit him now names technology spaces after him.

He passed away in 2024 at 95 years old.

But here’s the truth:
Roy Clay Sr. didn’t just break barriers.
He built infrastructure.

He built the first computer HP sold.
He advised the investors who funded the digital age.
He created companies that made electronics safer.
He pulled Black engineers into spaces that had been designed without them.

And somehow, many textbooks still whisper his name — if they mention it at all.

So tell this story.

Tell the young person sitting in algebra wondering if tech was built for them.

Tell them a Black boy from segregated Missouri helped build Silicon Valley itself.

History is not only what is printed.
It’s what we choose to pass on.

Roy Clay Sr. didn’t wait for recognition.
He built something so foundational that recognition would eventually have no choice but to catch up.

And now it’s our job to make sure it does.

02/18/2026

This is what’s wrong right now in America, not just America, everywhere, Corporate greed. Veterinarians have a high rate of su***de because they care so much for the animals they treat. Our Vet at the farm killed himself. As a kid I didn’t understand. Enough with insurance controlling everything we do. People in this country have bartered since we arrived here after the Indians. People who love animals and the land are the most honest people I know. My dad had a handshake agreement since the mid 70’s with the farmers surrounding our farm. No paperwork, just honesty. They leased the land from Dad and they farmed it, fertilized it, cared for it like it was their own. Dad never asked for more money, but the farmer came to him and gave Dad more money. He said, “Ray, it’s worth more money and I’m honored that you still allow us to take care of it and farm it”. That’s honesty. A portion of that land has been sold now. My hope is the new owners understand how precious their tenants are for keeping their land from becoming fallow and barren.

I stared at the sobbing waitress and the $14,000 estimate. I’m no longer a veterinarian. I’m a grim reaper with a calculator.

She was 24, still in her diner apron, trembling so violently the credit card clattered against the counter.

“I have $500,” she whispered, tears carving lines through her mascara. “Rent’s due Tuesday. Can I… make payments?”

The screen showed the financing application: denied.

“I’m sorry,” I said, the words bitter as ash. “Corporate policy. Full payment upfront for surgery.”

That’s my role now. I no longer diagnose illness; I diagnose wallets. I decide who lives and who dies by a three-digit credit score.

It wasn’t always like this.

In 1985, I practiced out of a converted barn on a Midwest dirt road. I drove a rusted Ford, carried a tackle box of supplies, and scraped by on a mortgage I could barely pay. But we had handshakes.

Farmers, steelworkers, teachers—no insurance, but they paid what they could. Mrs. Miller settled her cat’s C-section with three handmade quilts. Old Man Henderson fixed my radiator in January for treating his coonhound’s arthritis.

No “wellness plans,” no administrative fees—just trust.

A 2 a.m. emergency? I pulled on boots, drove to the farm, and stitched the dog on the tailgate beneath moonlight.

When it was time to say goodbye, we did it on the grass under oak trees. No fluorescent hum, no rush, no next client. Just shared grief, quiet and raw. I held owners as tightly as I held their animals. We were neighbors.

Now I work in a glass box owned by a Chicago investment firm. My 25-year-old “Practice Manager” has never cradled a puppy but knows our revenue-per-square-foot target by heart. Last week he handed me a script: “When discussing euthanasia, upsell the Premium Memorial Package. Clay paw prints carry 200% markup.”

I threw it away.

We used to battle parvo and distemper. Now we battle the internet.

Tuesday a woman rushed in with a Bulldog—tongue purple, drowning in his own fluids.

“Oxygen and emergency surgery,” I told her.

She scrolled her phone. “My Frenchie Facebook group says it’s allergies. Just give him local honey.”

I looked at the dog dying on my table, then at her.

“Ma’am,” I said, voice cracking, “Facebook isn’t a doctor. Your dog is suffocating. Right now.”

She posted a one-star review from the parking lot: “Rude vet. Just wants money.”

The pandemic nearly broke me. Leashes passed through car windows. Diagnoses shouted over idling engines.

The worst: euthanizing a Golden Retriever in a hatchback while his 80-year-old widow sobbed into her steering wheel ten feet away—protocol forbade her inside.

Something in me shattered. In all of us.

So why stay in this bleach-and-greed place?

Because of the locked bottom drawer in my filing cabinet. Corporate has no key.

It holds no invoices—just Polaroids from the ’90s, scratched dog tags, crayon thank-yous from kids now grown, a single tennis ball from a hero Golden who once saved a child.

And the moments the suits can’t monetize.

Last month a homeless veteran carried in a shivering kitten from a storm drain. Mangled leg. He placed a crumpled five on the counter.

“It’s all I got,” he said, eyes on his boots. “Haven’t eaten today. But please… help him.”

Manager at lunch. Cameras rolling. I didn’t care.

“Keep your money,” I said.

We repaired the leg, cleared the infection, named her Sarge.

When I handed her back, he wept. Rough, dirt-stained fingers gripped mine.

“No one helps people like me,” he choked.

“Animals don’t care about your address,” I replied. “They only care about your heart.”

That’s why I’m still here.

Despite credit checks, influencers, and memorial upsells, the love remains real.

When medicine fails and money no longer matters, I have one final duty.

I ignore the clock. I ignore the bill.

I kneel on the cold floor, knees creaking, hand on a chest rising too slowly. I meet the owner’s eyes.

“I’m here,” I say. “I’m not going anywhere. We’ll walk him home together.”

That part can’t be sold. No business school teaches it.

It costs a piece of your soul every time.

But it’s the only part left that keeps us human.

01/25/2026

Spread this far and wide in its many places as you can ice and CBP are changing their tactics and trying to integrate into societies trying to integrate into the crowd changing what they’re wearing changing their vehicles making them look like their civilian vehicles. Please watch this whole video and spread it as far as you can.

PLEASE HELP ME SHARE THIS EVERYWHERE‼️‼️‼️

01/16/2026

Grammy-winning banjo player Béla Fleck had been scheduled to play three concerts with the National Symphony Orchestra there next month. http://nbc4dc.com/CJTDDPo

01/16/2026

At 74, America's most beloved comedian dressed in rags and slept on heating grates. They hospitalized her. Critics hated it. She did it anyway—because someone had to. November 5, 1985. Millions of Americans turned on CBS expecting to see Lucille Ball do what she did best: make them laugh. Instead, they saw Lucy—their Lucy—unrecognizable. No red hair. No glamour. No perfectly-timed physical comedy. Just a 74-year-old woman in filthy clothes, pushing a shopping cart that held everything she owned, sleeping on Manhattan streets, invisible to the world walking past her. Lucy was playing Florabelle, a homeless elderly woman in the TV movie Stone Pillow. And she named the character after her grandmother—Flora Belle Hunt, a pioneer woman who'd survived impossible hardships. America didn't know what to do with it. For 50 years, Lucille Ball had been the face of American comedy. She'd built an empire. She was the first woman to own her own television studio. She'd made three generations laugh until they cried. At 74, she was wealthy beyond measure. She could've spent her remaining years accepting awards, doing talk shows, living comfortably on her legacy. Instead, she chose the hardest role of her life. The script for Stone Pillow landed on her desk in 1985. It told the story of elderly homeless women—the ones society refused to see. The invisible women sleeping on heating grates, pushing shopping carts, dismissed as "bag ladies. "In 1980s America, homelessness was exploding. But television pretended it didn't exist. And nobody was talking about elderly women living on streets—abandoned by families, failed by systems, erased by society. Lucy saw an opportunity to use her fame for something that mattered. She knew the risks. She knew audiences wouldn't want to see their Lucy dirty, unglamorous, heartbreaking. She knew critics might savage her. She knew it could damage the image she'd spent decades building. She said yes anyway. Production was brutal. They filmed on location in New York City during an unseasonable May heat wave. Lucy, at 74 with existing health issues, wore multiple layers of heavy clothing—winter clothes in sweltering heat—because the story was set in winter. She walked city streets for hours. She slept on actual heating grates. She pushed a shopping cart through Manhattan. She looked homeless because she was portraying homeless. The heat and physical demands hospitalized her for two weeks with severe dehydration. Doctors discovered she was allergic to cigarettes—after 56 years of chain-smoking. But Lucille Ball—the same woman who'd broken her leg during I Love Lucy and kept working in a cast—pushed through. She was determined to honor the women this story represented. When Stone Pillow aired, the ratings were impressive. Over 23 million people tuned in—partly from curiosity, partly from loyalty to a legend. But critics were divided. Some praised her courage. Others were harsh: "We don't want to see Lucy like this." "Too depressing." "Uncomfortable. "Many viewers felt the same way. They wanted Lucy Ricardo making them laugh, not Florabelle making them confront uncomfortable truths about elderly homelessness. Lucy expected it. That was the point. In interviews, she was clear: she didn't make Stone Pillow for universal praise. She made it to spark conversation. To make people see the elderly homeless woman on the street as a person with dignity, with a story, worthy of compassion. "Maybe next time you walk past someone sleeping on the street," she said, "you'll remember they're a person. They have a story. "Four years later, on April 26, 1989, Lucille Ball died at 77 from a ruptured aortic aneurysm. She'd spent six decades entertaining America—from vaudeville to the golden age of television to becoming Hollywood's most powerful female executive. But in her final major acting role, she chose to be unglamorous. Uncomfortable. Real. Not for laughs. Not for awards. But because elderly homeless women were invisible, and Lucy Ball had the fame to make people see them. That's what courage looks like at 74: Risking everything you've built to shine light on people everyone else ignores. Stone Pillow isn't what people remember about Lucy. It's not her greatest work. It didn't win major awards. Most people have never heard of it. But it reveals something profound about who she was when the cameras weren't making her a comedy icon: She cared more about using her platform for good than protecting her image. Lucille Ball: 1911-1989The comedian who made the world laugh.
The pioneer who broke every barrier for women in television.
The executive who built her own studio.
The 74-year-old who played a homeless woman because nobody else with her platform would. On November 5, 1985—39 years ago today—Lucy took the biggest risk of her legendary career. Not for applause. Not for profit. But to make invisible people visible. That's the Lucy Ball story that doesn't get told enough. The one where she chose courage over comfort. Purpose over praise. Impact over image. At 74, when she had nothing left to prove, she proved what matters most: How you use your voice when you have one.

01/14/2026

I was one button press away from destroying an old man's life. The code enforcement officer was on speed dial. A lawsuit threat was already drafted in my head. I was ready to crush him.

Then I stepped into his garage and saw my thirteen-year-old son holding a blowtorch. My heart forgot how to beat.

We live in Silver Creek Estates. You know the kind: chemically perfect lawns, trash cans concealed behind matching beige lattice, and a HOA email within twenty minutes if your garage door dares to stay open too long. It's a neighborhood of enforced silence, gigabit fiber, and relentless, suffocating perfection.

I belonged here. Senior VP at a tech consulting firm. Fourteen-hour days staring at three 4K monitors, shuffling digital assets, always one misfired email from tanking the stock price. Soft hands. Italian suits. Life insured to the hilt.

Then there was Mr. Miller.

The anomaly. The only house on the cul-de-sac untouched since the Reagan years. Permanent oil stains on the driveway. Dandelions defying the lawn service. Garage door perpetually open, leaking Creedence Clearwater Revival and the grind of metal into our sterile quiet.

My son Ethan had been vanishing every afternoon for two weeks.

Ethan is "complex"—the word the school counselors prefer. Severe anxiety, ADHD, sensory processing issues. Wi-Fi drops trigger meltdowns. Routine changes spark panic. We've spent a small fortune on therapists, noise-canceling headphones, and tablets to keep him steady.

When the HOA's "Final Notice of Violation" landed—citing Mr. Miller's "Unauthorized Commercial Activity and Noise"—and I realized Ethan wasn't in his room, rage took over.

I crossed the street, the crumpled notice clenched like a gr***de. I was prepared to lecture about property values, child safety, the sanctity of our pristine community. The protective modern parent shielding his fragile son from a chaotic relic.

I stormed up the cracked driveway, past a rusted transmission. The smell hit first: gasoline, sawdust, WD-40, old coffee. The scent of actual work. Of 1975.

"Miller!" I barked, rounding into the garage. "I've told you to stay away from my—"

The sentence died.

It wasn't a chop shop. It was a shrine to mechanical history. Pegboard walls organized with thousands of tools, each in its place. Shelves heavy with carburetors, vintage radios, old lamps.

Under a single buzzing fluorescent, three boys stood around an engine block pulled from some long-forgotten swamp.

One was the kid down the block, recently suspended for fighting. Another was the quiet boy who avoided eye contact.

And Ethan.

My son—who recoiled from the "slimy" texture of mashed potatoes—was coated in black grease to his elbows. He gripped a heavy torque wrench clamped to a stubborn bolt. No meltdown. No rocking. No desperate search for his iPad. He was biting his lip, eyes narrowed in fierce concentration I'd never witnessed.

Mr. Miller, built like weathered granite, perched on a rolling stool in ancient coveralls. He didn't glance at me. His attention stayed on my son.

"Easy, son," he said, voice low and gravel-steady. "Don't force it. Force it and you'll strip the head. Feel the metal yield. Listen to the steel."

Ethan exhaled slowly, closed his eyes for a beat, then leaned in with deliberate pressure.

Creak. Snap.

The bolt gave.

"I got it!" Ethan burst out, face splitting into a smile that broke something inside me. A genuine, unguarded smile. "Mr. Miller, I got it loose!"

"Good work, kid," Miller grunted. "Now check the gasket. Cracked? We make a new one. We don't replace. We repair."

I stood frozen, the HOA letter suddenly heavy and absurd in my hand. The garage wasn't chaos. It was rhythm. Purpose. The sound of things being mended.

Miller finally looked up. Eyes that had seen wars, hard winters, harder times. He watched the fight drain out of me, replaced by bewilderment.

"You here to take him?" he asked. No fear of me or the HOA. Just quiet fatigue.

"I... got a letter," I muttered, slipping the paper behind my back. "They say you're running a business."

He gave a dry chuckle. "Business? Haven't seen a dollar in twenty years. These boys drag their broken junk here. I show 'em how to fix it."

He rose—taller than I'd realized—wiped his hand on a rag, and extended it. I hesitated, then shook. His grip swallowed my soft office palm. Rough. Real. Terrifying in its honesty.

"Your boy," he said quietly, so Ethan couldn't hear, "he ain't broken."

"He has severe anxiety," I whispered, defensive. "He needs structure. Control."

"He's bored," Miller said plainly. "Brain running wide open, and you've got him parked in front of screens in a padded room. He needs resistance. Needs to feel his hands change the world. Needs to learn that when something breaks, you don't toss it. You fix it."

I looked at Ethan. He was laughing with the other boys, comparing grease streaks like battle scars. They were a crew. For years I'd tried to medicate and manage him into fitting the mold.

Miller had handed him a wrench and a reason.

"We live in a throwaway culture," Miller said, gazing at the identical, manicured houses beyond the open door. "We toss toasters, cars, people when they don't perform. But nothing's unfixable. Not with patience. Not with grit."

I stared at the notice. "Visual nuisance." "Unauthorized gathering."

I walked to the scrap-metal drum in the corner and dropped the paper in.

"Do you..." I cleared my throat, feeling foolish in my tailored suit and polished shoes. "Think the carburetor on my '69 Camaro is worth saving? Been under a tarp in storage fifteen years. Wife wants it scrapped."

Miller's grin cracked his face open, shedding years. "Bring it over. But you sand the rust yourself. I ain't your maid, and this ain't charity."

I stayed two hours. Ruined my loafers. Stained my dress shirt with 10W-30. Didn't check email once.

Walking home at sunset, Ethan didn't reach for his phone. He moved with a new confidence, hands blackened with honest work.

"Dad?"

"Yeah, bud?"

"Tomorrow we're fixing the chain on the neighbor's bike. Mr. Miller says it's shot, but we can re-link it if we heat it right."

"Sounds good."

"Dad?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm not scared there. My chest doesn't get tight. The noise... it makes sense."

I pulled him close, grease and all, hugging harder than I had in years.

We've engineered a world of effortless convenience: dinner by thumbprint, meetings in pajamas, instant everything. But in chasing "smart" and "clean," we've forgotten the medicine of dirt under fingernails. We've swapped workshops for safe spaces and wonder why our kids shatter so easily.

We raise a generation afraid of failure because they've never learned failure is just a stripped bolt—you back it out, l**e it, try again.

The HOA sent another notice yesterday. Demanding the "unauthorized gatherings" stop.

I replied: It's not a gathering. It's a classroom. If you object, come over. We'll show you how to fix your perspective.

This weekend I'm skipping golf. I'm buying real tools. Because it turns out I'm the one most in need of repair.

11/26/2025

A recording from Lev Parnas's live video