Once again, the president is trying to use his office to enrich himself.
It’s hardly a surprise at this point that Donald Trump is using his presidency for personal profit. In the most recent example, he’s been floating the possibility of hosting the Group of Seven summit at one of his golf clubs next year, complete with high-profile presidential endorsements of the supposed virtues of the site. As Greg Sargent says, this is the “one bedrock principle, one unshakable constant in Trump’s conduct, from which he will never waver.”
That Trump is using the presidency for personal gain is bad. That he’s willing to at least encourage the appearance of flat-out bribery – suggesting that he’ll favor those who stay at his hotels and otherwise enrich him – undermines the idea of constitutional government.
By May of 1945 the German Nazi Regime was defeated, but racism and fascism would continue to simmer in the dark souls of white nationalists. After the Second World War Bertolt Brecht warned:
“Don’t yet rejoice in his defeat, you men!
Although the world stood up and stopped the bastard,
The bitch that bore him is in heat again.”
Eighty years after white nationalist Nazi aggression spilled blood across the planet, the same evil has risen again.
Most Americans who have health insurance get it through their employer. I have started several companies and served as a CEO, and I can assure you that if a company didn’t have to spend the time or money providing health insurance — something that is a huge distraction and money sink from the company’s core business — then that company could easily afford to pay their employees a significantly higher salary. In fact, typically enough to more than offset the extra taxes that people would have to pay to support universal single-payer health insurance.
And there are other benefits that most people don’t even realize. For example, I have lived in three countries that have single payer systems, and in those countries insurance for your car is a small fraction of what it is in the US. Why? Because the biggest cost of car insurance is liability insurance to cover health care costs for you, your passengers, and other parties when you are involved in an accident. But if everyone’s health costs are covered by a single payer system, then there is no need for that insurance.
As so many of our brothers and sisters in Christ endorse, with great enthusiasm, new attacks by our government on desperately ill children, we may as well be overt about it.
What would Satan do?
I think of my continuing inner debate about good and evil as I hear of the latest policy change. It was made quietly, behind the curtain, with no public announcement. The secret came out as families of very ill children showed official letters to news outlets. I first heard of it from a clip of a town hall meeting held by Joe Biden in North Carolina. The news took me back to the history lessons I learned as a child: history from nineteen and a half centuries ago: 64 AD. Continue reading “Serene Sanctuaries Where We Can Comfortably Lose Our Souls”
Jack Jodell at The Saturday Afternoon Post is not surprised at the corruption as the President of the United States becomes an in-person commercial, all but passing out leaflets begging heads of state to hold the next G7 summit at his hotel.
Or is it a motel? Statesmanship is confusing these days.
Of course, they agree and stuff the rental fees into his pockets. Jack has his own suggestion for the next summit.
Obama did some heavy lifting to get America out of the Bush recession, keeping it from becoming a depression, all the while swimming upstream against Republican obstruction. The new upward trend continues today. Our current President tries to take credit.
tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors looks at the phone calls from China begging President Trump to resume negotiations. Background: Trump officials conceded calls were uh … conflated … projected … didn’t quite happen that way … uh. tengrain suggests the possibility that just maybe my President made stuff up again. You know: lying.
After reading Pastor Pavlovitz’s blog for some time now, it seems to me that he cares deeply about some people and wants for those people to find acceptance and contentment. This is very good; however, In my humble opinion, this post by the good pastor is very instructive regarding his misunderstanding of prayer and God. The fact that Pastor Pavlovitz once believed that enough prayer warriors could change God’s mind and thus have him bestow whatever blessing was requested shows an immature understanding of God, faith, and prayer. Indeed as Pastor Pavlovitz had come to correctly understand, God is not some benevolent Santa Claus that responds to our prayers with gifts if only we believe and pray hard enough. Unfortunately, thinking that prayer now serves no purpose other than to unite others in empathy and solidarity is also a misunderstanding of the purpose of prayer. While prayer may indeed serve in an ancillary capacity in that manner, it is certainly not the primary reason for it. Continue reading “More on Prayer – It Fulfills Its Sacred Purpose”
Plenty of people, many still of great conviction, pray without “unlocking” any real empathy, binding themselves to others, or being kind–and convince themselves in the process that they are actually accomplishing something worthwhile. Others pray to different gods and claim the same benefits.
And since we can express and develop concern for others in many ways that do not involve prayer, some of which have a more measurable impact on the world, it’s fair to say that these benefits, if real, are not unique to prayer.
I suspect that Mr. Pavlovitz has no need of prayer to be a kind and helpful person. What he brings to the table already is what he ends up getting out of it, just as it is for those who pray without kindness. Continue reading “More on Prayer – It Is Not Needed to Show Kindness”
Our beloved president, Donald Trump, has now started to call himself The Chosen One, intimating that he is the Messiah who has arrived to bring peace and good will to the planet, and salvation to those who believe in him, particularly those who are extremely affluent. Indeed, Evangelicals and Mormons steeped in their religions may perceive him as sort of a Messiah, placing conservative justices on the Supreme Court who may in the future overturn Roe vs Wade, and strengthening Israel to deal with its foes in the Middle East.
On the other hand, Trump’s behavior has been a bit strange for a nascent Messiah, acting more like an agent of the Devil. Perhaps Satan is actually the one who chose Trump. First of all, he has gone through three wives and has had multiple affairs, showing no respect for women though he has paid some of them off to keep them quiet. In his own words, however, he has had no qualms about grabbing women by the “pussy” if he is attracted to them sexually. He befriended a known pedophile, Jeffrey Epstein, though it is unclear whether he participated in any of his pal’s orgies. He was photographed in the past with Epstein and a gaggle of young girls partying, groping some of them and commenting about their bodies.
The Chosen One was also involved in gambling, having built a number of casinos in Atlantic City that were luxurious gambling palaces. However, each of them separately went bankrupt, costing his investors plenty of money and workers their jobs. The Chosen One was not a great businessman. In all of his construction projects, he apparently stiffed many small contractors and his workers, a number of whom were illegal immigrants. His airline, named after himself (what else?) also went bankrupt, again costing people money and jobs.
One of his most evil ventures however, was Trump University where The Chosen One stole money from poor students who had to take out federal loans to pay for useless courses.
US President and Once Favorite News
From News Corpse:
Some of the best moments on Fox News occur when they have no idea what they are talking about. This happens with some frequency considering the low bar that Fox sets for hiring pundits and commentators. The prerequisites for a job at Fox News are primarily the willingness to lie effusively on behalf of Donald Trump and his Republican Nationalist Party, and blond hair.
On Monday morning’s episode of Outnumbered there was a perfect example of this tendency that Fox has to stumble onto something truthful without ever knowing they did so. The program had a segment on the just announced candidacy of radio host and, former Tea Party Republican, Joe Walsh, for the GOP nomination for president. He’s a longshot challenger to Trump, but his conservative credentials and passionate denouncements of Trump could take a toll on the embattled and mentally infirm incumbent. While discussing Walsh’s prospects in the race, Fox host Shannon Bream sought to itemize his weaknesses by revisiting some his previous abhorrent statements (video below):
“This is what Joe Walsh said: ‘Obama’s a Muslim. He’s an enemy and a traitor.’ He said this about Kamala Harris: ‘If you’re black and a woman you say dumb things, lowered bar.’ He also got duped by Sacha Baron Cohen about arming toddlers and kindergartners with guns. […] I think critics might say it’s astonishing that he even thinks he can run right now.”
Okay, then. That’s now the Fox News criteria for establishing when someone is unfit to run for president, There were four standards laid out: Calling Obama a Muslim, calling Obama an enemy, saying black women are stupid, and getting punked by a hoaxster. Let’s see how Trump stands up.
BREAKING: Stocks plunge after Trump tweets that he will respond to new China tariffs today and says “American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China”
