Politics and Entertainment

I’m beginning to think the boredom factor is affecting politics. Weary from the mind-numbing political cacophony, Americans want something more exciting on the menu. In a choice between watching another four-year drama, they seem to want a scary horror movie. They would favor Trump II over The Curious Case of Joseph Biden.

The problem with horror movies is that sequels can go on forever. The Halloween franchise has thirteen films to its credit and I’m afraid if Trump gets his sequel, America is in for more of the political version of Michael Myers than it can stomach. Those thirteen films have collectively grossed $884 million which would just about cover Trump’s current legal bills, fines, and penalties, with enough left over to help his campaign take out a few ads on Russia-1 TV.

Donald Trump and Michael Myers have a lot in common. Myers was shot and fell from a balcony, burned alive, shot and fell down a mineshaft, injected with tranquilizers, decapitated with a fire axe, electrocuted, shot in the head, burned inside a house, and finally had his throat and wrist slit before being thrown into an industrial shredder during the 44-year course of the 13 movies.

Likewise, Donald Trump has so far survived marital infidelity, a blackmailing porn star, the Access Hollywood tape, racial discrimination at Trump housing, multiple bankruptcies, a rape slander conviction, 91 pending criminal charges, and a $457M fraud case, only to seek a return in Trump II, The Revenge.

Does America want a presidential horror franchise, “the likes of which the world has never seen,” or do we want four more years of Mr. Biden's Neighborhood where sanity, honesty, and at least an attempt to collaboratively work across the aisle? Tuesday, November 5, 2024, this question will be answered.

We The People

 We The People

The first three words of the US Constitution read, “We the People…” It does not say, "I the Authoritarian." It does not say, "I the Dictator." You either believe in the Constitution and its concept of all power coming from “We the People,” or you can no longer say you are an American patriot. You cannot claim to be, "making America great again," if you believe that any president can have unrestrained power to do as he pleases.

We will be faced with such a decision this November as one of the candidates would like to change the Constitution without amendment. That candidate has openly expressed his admiration for Vladimir Putin who holds the title, “President of Russia” under a constitution that he amended without following the law. That so-called president just got “re-elected” in a process where he dictates the outcome. All challengers are murdered at his direction. With the March 2024 Russian presidential election forthcoming, his only serious challenger was Alexei Navalny so Navalny was murdered in prison in February 2024.

Whatever you feel about immigration, abortion, education, healthcare, the cost of living, etc., these issues and problems pale in the glaring light and threat of authoritarian rule. This should not be an election about “the issues” as would be normal in an American presidential election year, this is about the continuation of the way of life foreseen by our founders. Our founding fathers wrote our Constitution emphasizing, "We the people," because they had just fled the autocratic rule of a sovereign king.

The term “sovereign” is all about supreme power and authority being vested in a single individual. It is that sovereign power that is being sought by one of our presidential candidates. That candidate may lie about many things. He may boast falsely about his wealth, the size of his adoring crowds, the size of his penthouse, his military experience, and his business acumen, but he is all too clear and truthful about his ambitions. He would like to be America’s Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong Un, or Viktor Orban, and he would rule America in a fashion those dictators fully understand.

Protections guaranteed under our Constitution are being regularly eroded by others within his party of MAGA as they claim to be protecting “our freedoms” while taking them away. They regularly name such policies and efforts with deceptive wording to disguise what they are doing. Trump acolyte Ron DeSantis promoted Florida's Individual Freedom Act specifically to infringe on our freedoms. FIFA, aka the Stop Woke Act, was found to violate the First Amendment to the Constitution on March 4, 2024, by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

We were extremely lucky that there were a few individuals in key positions that prevented our first American coup in 2021. Those people paid for their patriotism with their careers. They will not be around on January 20, 2025, to prevent a takeover of our Democracy. Far-right extremist groups have evolved and have been emboldened since the deadly Charlottesville rally of 2017. Their leader is planning for the complete overhaul of our country beginning “on day one.”

Many have asked, "Are you better off today than you were four years ago. Perhaps you forgot that four years ago, hospital morgues had to hire refrigerator trucks to hold the overflow of the dead. No, D.T. didn’t cause the pandemic. He merely denied its existence, told us it wouldn’t come here, and mismanaged it when it did arrive. This was not an unforeseen event, we had been warned it was coming. Who can forget his advice to inject bleach or somehow shine a germicidal light inside our bodies. We had set up the NSC directorate for global health and security and bio-defense to deal with pandemics. Trump closed that NSC directorate in 2018. He seems to have foresight like Mr. Magoo. Covid-19 hit us with devastating consequences in 2019.

In November we will be called upon to decide if we want to continue with a government where the power comes from, “We the People,” or allow a dictator into the White House. Trump has sworn that he will only act like a dictator on his first day so that he may unleash his wrath on his rivals. If any of you believe it would only last a day, perhaps you can explain where that Mexican check ended up to pay for the border wall. Trump has sworn to abolish NATO and has encouraged Putin to invade all of Europe. This candidate has promoted a plan for cutting Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. He has also floated the idea of taking over the FBI to turn it into a political arm of the Executive Branch. Imagine what it would mean if a president could have his own police force to attack his rivals.

Forget the issues in this election. Vote to save our Democracy so that we stand a chance of addressing those problems with fair-minded leadership. Vote for the better human being, not the man who would be king. Only We the People can save, We the People.

Off By 40 Years

 Off By 40 Years

The dystopian future promised by George Orwell in his novel 1984, arrived 40 years late. Orwell wrote his famous novel in 1949 when I was four. He wrote of a totalitarian society where individual freedoms were no longer tolerated and the government asserted total control over its citizens. What has arrived in America is perhaps more aligned with authoritarianism where our citizens have been blinded into submission by a corrupt state intent on limited political freedoms and suppression of dissent. Our near future could be called disTrumpian, after its founder.

We no longer need Orwell’s Big Brother or the Thought Police, these have been replaced by corrupt influencers using the mental narcotic of social media. The propaganda of our present is not the “Newspeak” of Orwell’s novel, but a similar corruption of language using euphemism. It is here where that which would otherwise be offensive is now tolerated. Making America Great Again is a catch-all euphemism that covers the sins of xenophobia, antisemitism, and bigotry with a sense of national pride and White Christian supremacy.

Our current thought police are rewriting our history to further their own ideology. Books are being banned and the new thought police are trying to control what is taught in our schools. An example of doublespeak would be, “Stop Woke” where the mere mention of certain ideas found to be distasteful to some are banned. W.O.K.E. is a doublespeak acronym that means “Wrong to our Kids and Employees.” This concept, being promoted in the name of freedom, is that the State has unfettered authority to muzzle its professors. The Stop Woke Act, aka Individual Freedom Act, would permit professors to promote speech that the government sanctioned but would prohibit speech it did not like. Under the guise of "protecting freedom," the law would also control a Florida corporation's right to conduct training that the government saw as WOKE. Florida would have its own "Ministry of Truth" to restrict free speech using the doublespeak of protecting speech.

America was once the shiny apple of democratic freedoms. That apple began rotting at its core in 1976 with the Supreme Court ruling in Buckley v Valeo that decided that limits on election expenditures are unconstitutional. The second decision in Citizens United v Federal Election Commission in 2010 allowed corporations to join the unincorporated masses with unfettered financial access to government officials. Those decisions made political decisions subject to the unfair influence and prejudice of financial gain. What would be “right for the country” would mean “what is financially expedient” for the politician.

Our metaphoric shiny apple was now awash with cash. It wouldn’t be long before the lure of all that cash would attract some hungry worms. One such ravenous worm entered the political mainstream who was a master of doublespeak. He honed his skills in the entertainment industry. He is the promised one. He is the Big Brother worm that will feast on the fruits of our labors to his heart’s content.

This new entrant on the political scene will mesmerize the masses with promises of a better life that only he can deliver. He points to the obvious corruption of the existing political machinery, and the banality of their current existence. He provides scapegoats for their wrath and tells them he will make them great again. They are ripe for the picking. They line up to be shorn. They bleat out their delight. They ignore his flaws.

They ignore any of his scary rhetoric with, “he was just kidding.” They have become Mizaru and Kikazaru, the first two of the Three Wise Monkeys of the Japanese maxim. They see and hear no evil even as it engulfs them. They will ignore Iwazaru, the third wise monkey, and will shout their evil. There is safety and comfort within the cadre of like-minded souls.

On March 16, 2024, our worm with a combover threatened a “blood bath” if he loses another election this November. Assumably, the insurrection of January 6, 2020, was just a rehearsal for the carnage that would ensue if things didn’t go his way. In usual fashion, our blonde invertebrate called the not-unexpected outrage resulting from his remarks, Fake News. We should have known that he was talking only about auto imports.

Here is the verbatim quote, “Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a blood bath for the whole — that’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a blood bath for the country.” As hard as I look, I have failed to find the words auto or import anywhere in this statement.

While Orwell was referring to Nazism and Stalinism where any who dare to think thoughts not promoted by the state may be tortured into submission. Where political propaganda is superior to truth and trumps (no pun intended) free speech. Americans will have to decide this November if this worm represents the future of our democratic apple or if we should toss it to protect the good apples left in the bushel basket.

Are we to suffer the fate of Winston Smith of 1984 fame and emerge from the horrors of Room 101 blinded by the false promises of a charlatan? Will we opt for a solution much worse than the problem? Will we blindly accept a government of unchecked power that will lead to unchecked corruption, or will we make the effort to actually solve the multitude of problems that face us? Should we accept our dysTrumpian future? Nobody ever said democracy would be easy.

Lost in the Weeds

As I sit in my recliner and gaze upon the political arena of 2024 through my 65” window to the world, I am reminded of a job I had in the mid-60s. I worked summers for the Florida State Road Department on a survey crew. On one of those jobs, we were called to do some preliminary work on what would become Alligator Alley, aka I-75 to the west coast of Florida.

In a time before GPS, we followed paper road maps in our yellow survey truck to the edge of the Everglades. We had to “chop line” to lay out the location of what would become an interstate. Then, it was only swamp, sawgrass, brush, snakes, and assorted crawly things.

I would put on my rubber boots, lace up my snake leggings, and strap on the “brush king.” This tool was essentially a weed whacker on steroids. It had a gas engine attached to a long pole and a free-spinning metal blade that could cut through the sawgrass, brush, and small trees. In my harness I was safe and everyone else was in danger as I cut a rough path in a general westbound direction, which we thought would be the centerline of the new road. I was literally up to my ass in alligators but safe if I had gas left in my tank.

While I was buried in the heavy brush and weeds, I had only a vague idea of where I was going. I just knew I had to clear a path to better tell the contractor where to build the road. Watching today's political machinations, I feel we are still staring into the weeds and can’t see the bigger picture.

Joe Biden in his 2024 SOTU address referred to an “undocumented” person as an “illegal.” The PC Police quickly sounded the alarm, called out their media SWAT teams, and excoriated the president for his gaff. WTF! To become an “undocumented” person who is now hiding in this country, you have to have broken at least one of our laws. I would guess their point here is that while the act is illegal, the person isn’t. We are so concerned with semantics that we have lost sight of the real problem. We are once again caught with our heads down in the weeds.

The problem is the broken immigration system, not semantics. The immigration problem is a multi-headed hydra which, like the monster of Greek mythology, is immortal as long as it still has at least one head. Just as Hercules needed the help of his nephew Iolaus and a golden sword from Athena to slay the Hydra, any president needs the help of a Congress willing to put political theatre aside long enough to address the problem. President Biden’s main problem is that one of this Hydra's many heads with poisonous breath is none other than, “The Predecessor.”

Helping to fertilize the weeds is our "Us-vs-Them" mentality. Last night flipping channels I ran across an interview with a Latina politician discussing the immigration problem in Del Rio, Texas. The interviewer asked this person how, as a second-generation immigrant herself, she justified her support for Donald Trump who calls immigrants and the undocumented among us, “vermin” and states that they are “poisoning the blood of our country.”

This politician (sorry I didn’t get her name) lived in Del Rio and the interviewer mentioned that she probably knew of undocumented individuals living in her community. The response was typical in that she proclaimed that only Republicans had conservative values, loved God, loved their country, and wanted to protect families. The interviewer repeated the question three times before moving on after she got the same rambling response.

How any person of Hispanic descent can adore a man espousing white supremacist rhetoric and echoing language last heard at this political level in Nazi Germany, is puzzling. I understand the Republican bent of many Cubans in Miami who never got over President Kennedy’s handling of the Bay of Pigs. I know the attraction of strong-man authoritarian politics among Latino voters. I understand the religious conservative values of this population.

What I will never understand is the thought that Republicans have an exclusive patent on many of the better ideas of conservativism. If friends and relatives of mine were being called vermin poisoning the blood of America, that person would be my enemy and not my leader.

Perhaps it is time to break out the metaphorical “brush king” to clear the weeds obscuring our view. We can’t have vision while petty bickering and name-calling are drowning out the voices of reason. These voices of reason exist on both sides of the aisle but the Hydra of hatred and animosity must first be slain.

Alligator Alley was initially a failure. The entire project was rushed to completion in just four years and opened in 1968 as a simple two-lane highway. It was an illustrious example of poor construction and poor environmental planning that managed to kill people and wildlife with numerous accidents. The roadway was rebuilt between 1982 and 1992 as a four-lane highway with fencing and bridges to allow water and wildlife to go underneath.

I want to first claim my innocence here as I only told them where to build the damn thing, not how. The new road is still exactly where I told them to put it. I may have had my head down in the sawgrass but somehow I managed to go in the right general direction.

The 70mph Alligator Alley is the quick way from Miami to Naples, but the Tamiami Trail to the south is the slower, more scenic route. Both roads will get you there. As a country, we know where we want to go, we even know the way, we just need to get there the right way

State of the Union Address; Biden 2024

 March 8, 2024

Most of us held our breath as President Biden took to the podium last night. We all wanted to see who would show up. Would it be the tottering old man that Republicans have been describing? There was a sigh of relief when Smokin’ Joe, the Scrapper from Scranton came out of his corner swinging and landing punches. He even had Mike Johnson nodding and sometimes clapping under the table.

Ringside was a sea of white suits worn by Democratic women honoring the suffragists, women's rights, and reproductive freedom. Also in the crowd was one red MAGA-hatted buffoon straight from the GOP trailer park representing the hate and vitriol for which she is known. Another Republican star in the crowd was former representative George Santos with his rhinestone shirt collar that shouted, Look At Me. There was also Troy Nehls of Texas in his flag bow tie and a Trump-mug T-shirt with the words, Never Surrender.

In the other corner of the House Chamber ring was the ghost-of-president-past, an apparition known only as "my predecessor." While never once mentioned by name, the description of someone espousing “resentment, revenge and retribution" and jeopardizing American freedom at home and abroad, was all too clear.

The Scrapper from Scranton landed blow after blow on "my predecessor." It was 53 years ago today, March 8, 1971, that The Fight of the Century took place with another Joe. In that fight, held while Biden was starting his first year of government service, Smokin’ Joe Frazer won in a 15-round unanimous decision. After this State of the Union, Smokin’ Joe Biden is definitely ahead on points. "His predecessor" was over on his personal social media platform trying to "fact-check" the speech in real time. Truth Social suspiciously crashed as soon as Biden began talking and was down for half an hour. In boxing terms, a half-hour on the canvas would be a knockout.

Republican Counter to Biden SOTU Address

 Republican Counter to Biden's State Of The Union Address

Alabama’s Katie Britt countered Biden’s State of the Union address with a counter of her own, a kitchen counter. Trying to emulate a combination of Martha Stewart (in the kitchen), June Cleaver (explaining to Beaver), and Shari Lewis (with Lambchop), by talking down to the American public as if they were schoolchildren, Mrs. Britt gave an overly dramatic performance.

 

Her first point of contention was “the crisis at our southern border.” She claimed that “President Biden inherited the most secure border of all-time.” This statement wouldn’t even be true if the term “all-time” only covered her 42 years of life. She was born in 1982 when the Immigration Reform and Control Act was passed. From 2005 to 2009, illegal entries declined from an average of 850,000 to only 300,000 in 2009.

 By 2019, during Trump’s time in office, crossings again peaked at 852,000. Aided by the Title 42 pandemic-related immigration policy, Trump was able to shut down much of the border and implement his zero-tolerance policy where he (illegally) separated over 5,000 children from their parents with no tracking or record keeping. Mrs. Britt is correct that Biden took office during a period of low illegal immigration. The pandemic ended and with it Title 42 expired, illegal family separation was ended, and illegal immigration went back to its previous rising trend.

What Mrs. Britt failed to mention was that Democrats and Republicans jointly drafted the toughest immigration bill, certainly in her lifetime, and Trump-influenced Republicans killed it for political advantage.

Mrs. Britt went on to tell a horror story about a young girl who was a victim of cartel sex traffickers. This story was mixed with fentanyl poisonings and murders like Laken Riley in Georgia. She blamed all of these things on the President’s border policies. I would ask Mrs. Britt to read the paragraph immediately above and then tell me how it is not more Trump’s current interference than the will of President Biden that is exacerbating the problem.

Mrs. Britt didn't mention the name of the young girl in her story, but she heard that tale told by the victim in 2023 during a trip to Texas. The girl's name is Karla Jacinto Romero, a Mexican citizen. The event she described took place in the years between 2004 and 2008. While Mrs. Britt blamed Biden's border policies, it was George W. Bush who was the Republican president during this period. Ms. Romero was never trafficked across the border and none of that story had anything to do with Biden's border policy. It served only as inflammatory rhetoric being used for political gain. Mrs. Britt's insinuation that this was somehow President Biden's fault is just typical Republican political theatre. Neither Bush nor Biden had anything to do with a crime committed in another country.

Her next proclamation was that inflation was worse than it had been in 40 years. Given that inflation is currently at 3.09%, I rate that statement, “Pants on Fire.” Even with her 1984 to 2024 timeframe, I would remind her that inflation in 1984 was 4.3%, in 1990 it was 5.4%. If we go back to the 1981 Ronald Reagan period it was 10.3% and 4.83% when he left office in 1989.

In another statement, “For years, the left has coddled criminals and defunded the police — all while letting repeat offenders walk free.” I would remind her that the Laken Riley murder by an illegal immigrant happened in Georgia where that suspect had been arrested multiple times and released. Georgia has a Republican governor. As for defunding the police and not supporting the police, I would remind her of Donald Trump’s actions where he allowed the January 6th rioters (insurrectionists) to beat, club, mace, and cause the deaths of the police protecting our Capitol Building. The GOP also has bragged about cutting the budget (aka defunding) of the nation's police department, the FBI. Their celebrated 6% cut to the FBI budget was largely money for construction at the bureau’s campus at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama. The funding was placed into the budget years ago by Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, the legendary pork-barreling veteran who retired in 2022 at the age of 88. Mrs. Britt doesn't even have to leave her own state of Alabama to see a GOP example of cuts to a police budget.

She stated, “We’ve become a nation in retreat. And the enemies of freedom see an opportunity. Putin’s brutal aggression in Europe has put our allies on the brink.” Might I remind her that her champion wants to abandon NATO, has continually praised Vladimir Putin, and her Republican friends have withheld financial and military support for Ukraine because they want to use it as a bargaining chip for other things. President Putin has no greater allies than Donald Trump and the Republican Party.

Mrs. Britt threw down the hypocrite flag when Biden banned TikTok for government employees but has an account for his campaign. Donald Trump signaled his opposition to legislation that would ban TikTok in the US despite his previous support for a ban. His was more of a personal gripe than one regarding national security. It seems that a ban on TikTok would benefit Facebook (Meta) and Mark Zuckerberg both of whom are on the Trump enemies list.

She asks, “…are you better off than you were three years ago?” Well, three years ago we were just emerging from the throes of a global pandemic and the resulting threat to our economy. Since then, jobs, paychecks, spending, wealth, and financial security have made big gains which help mitigate the burden of inflation. Of course, many of the recent gains have made life better for the wealthy a bit more than the rest of us. For that, you can thank decades of Republicans prioritizing big business and the wealthy at the expense of the lower classes who are still waiting for Reagan’s promised trickle to reach them.

Further along in her emotional speech, she said, “We want to give you and your children the opportunities to thrive — and we want families to grow. It’s why we strongly support continued nationwide access to invitro fertilization.” Perhaps she forgot that we had all seen her name and the tagline below her picture that identified her as a Senator from Alabama. Yes, the same state who recklessly passed such restrictive abortion laws that its Supreme Court ruled in February that frozen embryos were to be considered children under state law.”

The Alabama Legislature had to scramble two days ago to undo the damage so they could protect IVF. Alabama, the “whoops we went too far state.” This new legislation doesn’t address the frozen embryo personhood issue. You may still be allowed to travel in the carpool lane in Alabama with a cooler of dry ice and a few frozen embryos.

I just know that Saturday Night Live is nearing completion of its Britt's family kitchen set and is putting the finishing touches on the script for the parody.

 

 

The Bible and Football

 Before Andy Griffith walked the streets of Mayberry as its loveable country sheriff, father to Opie, nephew to Aunt Bea, boss of Barnie, customer of Floyd, and landlord for Otis, he was a standup comedian. His comedy album, Just For Laughs, had a cut titled, What It Was, Was Football. In that comedy routine, he played a country boy who traveled to a nearby college town to help with a religious tent service. While trying to “get us a bite to eat a-fore we set up the tent,” he is caught up in a crowd and swept into a football stadium. As he didn’t know anything about the sport his description is from a unique perspective.

“…And what I seen was this whole raft of people a-sittin’ on these two banks and a-lookin at one another across this pretty little green cow pasture. Somebody had took and drawed white lines all over it, and drove posts in it, and I don’t know what all, and I looked down there and I seen five or six convicts a-runnin’ up and down a-blowin’ whistles.” “…It was that both bunches of them men wanted this funny-lookin’ pumpkin to play with.”  He later goes on to conclude that he still didn’t know what he saw that day but he had studied on it. He concluded, “…it’s some kindly of a contest where they see which bunchful of them men can take that pumpkin and run from one end of that cow pasture to the other without getting’ knocked down or steppin’ in somethin’.”

This routine gets its humor by pointing out that looking at something with fresh eyes provides a perspective that is unique to the observer. That observation may be somewhat descriptive but not necessarily accurate. This brings us to the Bible. According to some estimates there are over 3,030 versions in over 2,011 languages. Since 1526, Tyndale’s English translation alone has created around 900 different versions. According to Global University’s guide, there are at least eight popular versions in common usage today.

The Bible has both the Old and New Testaments based on 66 books written by various authors over hundreds of years. These books were translated from Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic. They were hand-copied by scribes which resulted in errors and discrepancies as well as a wide variety of interpretations. The first portion covering the life of Jesus wasn’t written until decades after his death by Paul the Apostle who admits he never met Jesus. Much of the New Testament was originally written 70 to 110 years after his death.

All of this is to say that the Christian Bible was written by a wide variety of people with varying points of view over a long period and none of it was from contemporaneous observation. Like the football analogy above the Bible should not be taken “as gospel.” There are admittedly errors, and bias, and to use the current vernacular, some of it is “fake news.” None of this is to deny the importance of the Bible or the solace it may provide to the millions of Christians who follow its teachings, but to attribute this great book with some divine certainty would be disingenuous. 

With the background described above, the thought that current judges like Chief Justice Tom Parker of the Alabama Supreme Court are quoting Bible scripture in their rulings as justification that supersedes existing law is ludicrous. The Bible may guide his conscience, but it should not be cited as a legal foundation or precedent. In his concurring opinion, Parker wrote, “Human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God, who views the destruction of His image as an affront to Himself.”

Aside from the fact that current law allows all Americans to practice any religion they want and not just a Christian religion and allows them the privilege of being atheist or agnostic if they choose, separation of church and state is legally well established. In current polls, the vast majority (73%) of Americans agree that religion should be kept separate from government policies.

We see this as a recurring theme where government officials advocate for Christian nationalism that seeks priority for Christianity over all other religions and beliefs. US House Speaker Mike Johnson went so far as to proclaim that our church-state separation was a “misnomer.” His position mimics many others in power who are attempting to promote their own interpretation of our Constitution as a Christian Constitution.

Among those who drafted our Constitution and Declaration of Independence-Washington, Franklin, Madison, and Monroe, were deists. While they all held to some religious beliefs, they were more often theistic rationalists who believed in both religion and rationalism. In this philosophy, they held that rationalism is the predominant element. Deists believe in a supreme being who created the universe that would operate solely by natural laws. They believed that after creating the universe, God would be absent from the world. The founders believed in reason over dogma. 

They would respect religions like Christianity and believed that one person’s faith was not to be intruded upon by the government. Likewise, religious doctrine should not be enshrined in governance.  Rationalism is a philosophy involving the study of nature, origin, and scope of knowledge, so that it may be used to apply reason as justification. The theistic rationalists would want to draw conclusions from existing information in a search for the truth. They would not be of the mind to search through a Bible to find the truth. They would use their knowledge and experience to form rational thoughts that could be applied to their decisions.

For our present-day leaders to proclaim that ours is a Christian nation founded on a Christian Constitution is a complete fabrication. There was no intent to create a Christian nation. Not a single Founding Father made any such claim in our founding documents or in any piece of private correspondence. These current politicians, judges, and government leaders who make any claim of Christion Nationalism based on our historical origins are wholly inaccurate and self-serving.

Our current national idolatry and proclaimed self-righteousness based on Scripture is merely an attempt to use the Bible as a tool to support a political agenda. The Bible as previously mentioned is not as accurate or infallible as some might claim, and it is vague and cryptic enough to provide reference for almost any cause or position. While our Founding Fathers were generally religious men who wanted to protect religion, they never identified Christianity as a national choice. Ours was not to be a Christian Nation but merely a nation where religion might be allowed to be of some influence.

Just as football is played by the most recent NFL Rulebook, our laws are defined by our Constitution and any enacted under that authority. The NFL rulebook is changed regularly and our Constitution may be amended as needed. Judges and referees interpret these rules and laws. It is not up to these judges and referees to change what was intended when the laws and rules were drafted. Using the Bible as some preeminent authority to make laws or provide interpretation would be like having Taylor Swift decide whether or not Travis Kelce had both feet in bounds for a go-ahead touchdown. In neither case would the decision be without bias.

Bidenomics vs. Trumpenomics

 Bidenomics vs. Trumpenomics

I hear a great many MAGA Trump supporters parrot the rhetoric that the economic policies of Joe Biden are bad and that only Trump can fix them. They seem to think that Trump’s business background makes him the better choice. Most don’t remember that Trump often fails in his business ventures.

Donald Trump has at least six bankruptcies from over-leveraged hotel and casino businesses in Atlantic City and New York. There was also Trump Shuttle, Inc. that defaulted on loans, Trump University forced to close after lawsuits and investigations, Trump Vodka that failed in 2011, Trump Mortgage that lasted only one year, GoTrump the travel site that suffered a similar fate, and Trump Steaks that failed within two months of its launch. Trump Airlines borrowed $245M to buy Eastern Air Shuttle, then installed gold bathroom fixtures before defaulting on their loan. Trump Magazine failed. Trump the Game failed.

Trump often fails to remember the key rule in all new businesses which is DROOM, or Don’t Run Out Of Money. All fledgling businesses need enough cash to sustain them while the business builds. You don't go into businesses expecting to turn an immediate profit, you have to be willing to support that business while markets develop and your business grows to be profitable.

For all of Trump’s claims of business acumen, the truth is that he has done rather poorly. Forbes calculated in 2021, that if Trump had never gone into business and merely invested his inheritance of over $400M in the S&P 500, his net worth would now be around $3B and he would still be on The Forbes 400 list of wealthy Americans. Instead, Trump is no longer on that Forbes list that he envies. His "business sense" has been so bad that if he were a candidate on his old show The Apprentice, he would have to fire himself. Actually, the only business Trump has been in that has made him lots of money was showbusiness. He made a ton of money ($427.4M) as the fake tycoon on his reality TV show.

Trump’s current financial situation is the result of his mismanaging his inheritance, stiffing vendors and other investors, and raising money disguised as political support. His idea seems to be to take a shotgun approach where he will try anything on a whim; casinos, vodka, steaks, a charity, a university, and now sneakers, to see what will stick. Where he can, he will use OPM (other people’s money), dodge his taxes, stiff his vendors, and intimidate anyone in his way with legal shenanigans.

At the Trump International Hotel, repair contractors were unpaid to the tune of almost $3M. A small business owner was cheated out of $100,000 worth of pianos. At Trump’s hotel in Washington DC, he left $5M of bills unpaid. Yet, working stiffs across the country think Trump is a business genius. These are the working stiffs who have yet to be stiffed by Trump.

While he was president, he misled the American public about the Covid-19 pandemic which made the resulting economic downturn worse than it should have been. His domestic policies damaged US industry and alienated our allies. He still thinks that tariffs are a good thing when the US government collects revenue from other countries. He either doesn’t realize or thinks simple-minded people don’t understand that US taxpayers pay those tariffs by paying higher costs for those imported goods.

During his presidency, his economic policy, which he says he will continue if reelected, was one of tax cuts for the wealthy and big business, an attempted repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), trade protectionism, and deregulation. As much as any president can influence the economy, Trump’s policies get a mostly failing grade. The Cato Institute, a conservative (or libertarian) slanted organization, gave Trump a report card on his presidency. They totally discounted the period of the COVID-19 pandemic to be fair. Trump then got a C on Fiscal Policy, a C on Regulation, a B on Jobs, a D+ on Entitlements, a D- on Trade, and an F on Immigration. The writer of this review, Scott Lincicome, stated in summary, “These grades would prevent President Trump from graduating.”

Trump’s opponent in this contest is our current president, Joe Biden. The Biden economy has added over 13 million jobs with over 800,000 of those jobs in manufacturing. The stock market is breaking all-time records regularly. He got the American Resue Plan (ARP) passed assuring a faster return to normalcy after the crisis of the pandemic. The ARP made the US the only G-7 nation to make it back to pre-pandemic growth levels. Our GDP surged by around 6 percent. The starting 6.3% unemployment rate is now below 4%. He has protected the ACA. Workplace job satisfaction, according to a recent study, is at a 40-year high. Low mortgage rates allowed 15 million homeowners to refinance at lower rates saving them an average of $2,000 each year.

Biden managed to push through, despite not having a friendly Congress, the passage of the infrastructure bill creating jobs, stimulating the economy, and fixing our broken infrastructure. The CHIPS Act was passed to support the semiconductor industry and help protect us from dependence on foreign supplies. The Inflation Reduction Act was narrowly passed to support our shift away from fossil fuels. The payoff for the IRA will be long-term. One hidden benefit of the IRA was a corporate buyback tax that provides a more effective measure of taxation on corporations. While taxing authorities have to rely on complex tax laws and largely take a corporation’s word on corporate profits, taxing what they pay out to shareholders is much more efficient.

Two areas of the economy that average Americans understand are the Two G’s. Gas and Groceries. Presidents have little control of these despite getting the blame or rarely the credit when prices rise or fall. In the case of groceries, the market is controlled by a very limited number of competitors, sometimes only three or four companies in key segments, who have little incentive to lower prices. Pandemic shortages gave them an excuse to raise prices but when supplies normalized, those record profits caused by sellers' inflation were hard to reverse. This lack of competition is the result of long-term reductions in regulation and a willingness to allow large corporations to dominate an industry. Deregulation and monopoly through mergers and a laissez-faire attitude toward big business have been the cornerstone of Republican presidents for years.

Gas prices are the result of global supply and demand. Neither Trump nor Biden can be blamed or credited for fluctuations here. Policies and legislation play only a very minor role. The war in Ukraine, the war in Gaza, Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping, aliens from outer space, you can name any one or all of these and still not understand why gas will never be thirty cents a gallon ever again.

In conclusion, the Trump economy was poor, but he had an excuse. He is a poor businessman who didn’t understand the global economy and was hit by a pandemic. Biden has served during a surging economy where the upper classes and the wealthy have seen more benefits than Americans struggling with debt. You probably don’t have to ask who I would rather see in charge of our economy in 2025. I don't want to play Trump the Game anymore, nobody wins.