A Church Divided
One of the most often discussed topic in America is the weird dichotomy between the Christian right and the followers of the teachings of Jesus.
As suggested, these folks “get it.”
Our New Leadership Standards
At left are the words of former Republican U.S. representative Joe Walsh who makes the point that the character of the U.S. president is an important aspect of his qualifications to serve in that office.
How cute! It’s illustrative of a period in time just a decade or so ago when there actually was some legitimacy to that concept.
Today, we are governed by an entirely new set of principles. E.g., you can grab women by the pussy without their consent, as long as you’ll keep the white race supreme. You can be the worst human being imaginable as long as you’ll promise to keep non-white vermin out of our country. If you can make poor people suffer even more terrible lives, we’ll support you all the way.
What to Make of a Criminally Insane President?
At this point in U.S. history, it’s appropriate to pose the question once again: Couldn’t the Founding Fathers have done a better job to ensure we never found ourselves in this position?
It all comes down to this: There are many safeguards to prevent the decay of democracy that we’re seeing here in 2025, but people like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin couldn’t have been asked to have foreseen that a plurality of American voters would have elected a criminal sociopath. In their time, they must have assumed that the electorate consisted largely of fairly intelligent people whose character favored the law-abiding over bare-faced criminals.
Tagged with: Criminally Insane President
“The Gulf of America”
From a recent Reuters/Ipsos survey: A supermajority of Americans don’t approve of renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America,” according to the results of a new poll. Around 70% of respondents to the latest opposed the move, with 25% of respondents supporting it. The rest were unsure.
The president’s attempt to be taken seriously on the world stage and here at home would be far more easily accomplished if his attention weren’t focused on childish crap like this.
What were history’s great fascists, say, Hitler and Mussolini telling their people during their respective rises to power? I don’t know, but Hitler wasn’t renaming the North Sea “the German Sea,” and Mussolini wasn’t calling Switzerland “Northern Italy.”
The people of the day who had real problems, and were looking for solutions, would have laughed them off the stage.
Tagged with: The Gulf of America
What Goes Through the Minds of Fox News Viewers?
As shown here, a Fox News poll shows that most Americans oppose what Trump and Musk are doing.
If you add in things like the annexation of Greenland and Canada, the numbers look even worse. A recent survey shows that 53% didn’t support acquiring Greenland, 29% thought it was a good idea but didn’t think it could realistically happen, and just 11% said the Trump administration should do everything it can to make it a reality.
Our Criminal Insanity
Almost all Americans respect and admire Canada and the generally kind, intelligent, and respectful people who make their homes there. Accordingly, we are appalled at our country’s decision to attack one of our oldest and finest friends.
In addition, as shown at left, there is a certain fraction of us who have it even worse, and are losing our livelihoods due to our president’s rash insanity. We all need to feel a particular sympathy for them.
If I were a Canadian, I’d rather vacation in Ukraine or South Sudan or the Gaza Strip than the United States.
Tagged with: Criminal Insanity
U.S. Drops in World Happiness Ranking
Why has the U.S. fallen to its lowest happiness ranking ever? Well, most Americans harbor at least one, often many, deep concerns about their country’s ongoing capacity to support a strong quality of life.
Some of us are worried about ourselves, e.g., inflation and high-paying jobs, where others are kept awake at night by issues facing huge masses of our population, for example: women, LBGTQs, the poorly educated, those without healthcare, people of color, and young people whose lives will be heavily impacted by climate change and other sorts of eco-catastrophe.
Above all, most Americans are horrified at what Trump and Musk are doing to the U.S. government, and the concept that our democracy may become a relic of the past.
Those of us who love America are profoundly saddened to watch this happen. As someone said recently, “This is like being tied to a chair being forced to watch a toddler play with a loaded gun.”
Why?
Answer to the question posed at left:
A plurality of American voters elected a man with terrible values, and now our nation is realizing that the toothpaste can’t go back into the tube.
Worse, while the president’s power is theoretically limited by the Constitution, those limits are vague and extremely difficult to enforce by Congress and the Judiciary.
The Founding Fathers clearly never dreamed that the electorate would choose a criminal sociopath as the country’s (and world’s) most powerful person.
The Politics of Two U.S. States
My wife and I have friends in Oklahoma.
Interestingly, they’re progressives, and they’re well aware of how rare they are.
Wisely, they keep their political views to themselves.
Tagged with: The Politics of Two U.S. States
Understanding the Mindset of Perverts
On an almost daily basis, readers send me news articles like the one at left that raise the question: why are Trump supporters so much more likely than progressives to be involved in criminal activities, and, as an example, sex crimes that involve children? Is this somehow a requirement to be a part of MAGA?
I can only make a guess, and here it is. Supporting Trump, especially at this point, requires a significant moral deficiency. In particular, it requires that you have little if any regard for the well-being of other people.
Imagine for a moment that you don’t care about the environment, education, rule of law, or human rights. Why should you be expected to care about the rights of little girls or boys to remain safe from sexual predation?
Tagged with: Supporting Trump
