Category Archives: Politics

The Ones Most Interested  

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—and the places most damaged.

We’ve had three weeks or so to digest the results of the November 5 election.  We are going to offer some insights in the next few entries.

One of the amendments we voted this month proposed something that we’ve seen before—a statewide vote to force a city or an area to allow something the people there did not want.

That was Amendment 5, which would have forced the people living and working at the Lake of the Ozarks to accept a commercial casino in their midst.  Two areas of Missouri were involved: the area where a casino is proposed and an area fearful that it would be the next place forced to accept one.

We’re talking about the Lake of the Ozarks and Branson.

It might be instructive to see their thoughts about the sports wagering amendment and the casino-placement amendment. We looked at the votes in five lake counties and in five Branson-area counties.

Both groups wanted nothing to do with either proposal, sports wagering or a casino.

The five lake counties were 57% against sports wagering, Amendment 2, that barely passed statewide with only 50.074% of the votes (as of last night), a margin so small a recount can be justified if the losers want to pay for it.  The five Branson-area counties opposed it to the tune of 60%.

Amendment 5 was the issue that was most stark in its possibilities for these two areas and the message sent by these ten counties was more than no. It pretty much amounted to a “Hell, No.” Camden County rejected the proposal 10,621-14,375. Taney County swamped it 9,875-16,071.  Sixty percent of the voters in the five lake counties rejected the casino. In the Branson area, the rejection was even greater, 61.4%.

End result: People in those ten counties don’t like sports wagering but their people can do it if they want, but they’re sure don’t want them ever to do it in a local casino.

Both of these counties have promoted their areas as family-friendly tourism destinations.  Branson was worried that a Lake of the Ozarks casino would be the precedent-setter for a casino campaign in Branson. Amendment 5 would have forced one area to accept something the voters clearly did not want, and exposed the other area to a similarly unwelcome intrusion later.

Branson had a taste of this issue twenty years ago when voters defeated a proposal to put a casino next to the White River at Rockaway Beach.

How about counties that have casinos?  Amendment 3 failed in three of them—Cape Girardeau (46.4%), Lewis (Mark Twain Casino in LaGrange—46/7%), and Cooper (Boonville 48.5%).

This time, the casino industry spent ten-million dollars on a petition effort and an election campaign for Amendment 5.  Their efforts netted them less than 48% of the statewide vote.

In St. Charles County, the home of Missouri’s most lucrative casino, Amendment 3 got only 53.4%.

The spending on the Lake of the Ozarks proposal was pocket change compared to the huge amount invested in the sports wagering amendment. It took $41 million from the two biggest internet bookies to overcome the $14 million dollar opposition campaign financed by another bookie. The victory margin was only (as of last night) 4,360 votes out of almost three million votes cast.  The certified final results will be posted after the Missouri Board of Canvassers meets on December 10.  Presidential electors meet a week later. Congress is to certify the federal results on January 6.

The casinos will get their money back pretty fast.  The host cities of the casinos will lose millions because of the support their voters game to Amendment Two.

How much will they lose?  There are two factors.  The state tax rate on gambling (table games and slot machines is 21%.  Host cities get ten percent of that amount. In the last fiscal year, ten percent of the state gaming taxes collected provided $39,711,780 to the host cities.

But sports wagering will provide ZERO money from the state gaming tax, which will be only ten percent to begin with.  The State Auditor estimates casino revenues in the first five years will be $1,044,684,612.  The states ten percent will amount to $104,467,878, all of it earmarked for higher and lower education. None of it goes to the home cities. None.

If Amendment 2 followed current law, the casinos’ own home dock cities would split an additional $10,446,788.

But it’s worse than that.  If the tax rate on sports wagering were the same as it is on other forms of gambling—and the industry has never given a consistent answer why is should not be—the home dock cities would have split an additional $21,938,377 in those first five years.

The casino industry will recover more than one-half of the money it spent on the campaign by giving their own host cities the shaft. Permanently.

I can show you the math; the casinos wouldn’t.

The manifest shortcomings in taxes can only be remedied by adoption of another amendment. A campaign that focuses on those shortcomings and either corrects or overturns Amendment 2 might be considered, given the paper-thin margin of victory for sports wagering. It would be interesting to know the reactions of city councils in the thirteen host cities if they are ever shown these numbers. I doubt the industry, its leaders, or its supporting organizations have ever given these figures to the cities

The casino industry has never been put on the defensive at the Capitol or at the ballot box.

And maybe it should be, as we will discuss in our next commentary because what could be coming will be only worse.

What Next? 

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The casino industry spent a record $41 million dollars to convince few more Missourians to vote in favor of sports wagering than voted against it—very few—out of about three million votes cast.

It will be a mistake to think the industry is satisfied with the sweetheart arrangement voters approved. The casino industry is changing rapidly, and the legislature and the voters need to be preparing for the next change in law that will benefit casinos and disadvantage the state, our schools, and their own host cities.

We don’t profess to be an expert or some kind of Casino Nostradamus, but we have been studying this industry and its proposals for several years now. It is not hard to find industry and scholarly articles pointing to a much different industry materializing in the next ten years or less. The casino industry is being altered by demographic changes. But rapidly changing technology will let the industry respond to those demographic changes.

Amendment 2 was just the first step. The policy set by Amendment 2 is likely to be the template for state policy as casinos move increasingly to remote betting on ALL gambling offerings.

We know from experience that technology often moves faster than the development of reasonable and fair regulation of it, making this a time for correction of shortcomings of the past coupled with anticipation of problems in the future. The state will be well-served by a adopting a policy of correction and anticipation, although there is considerable doubt that such a policy will be enacted a Missouri Legislature that is heavily influenced by industry pressure and largesse. Whether voters who can be wooed by absurd amounts of money spent on advertising that is low on the honesty scale would approve a policy unfriendly to the casinos is problematic.

A couple of years ago, Joey Richardson wrote for Gamblingsites.org, “(Casinos) are going to need to change what they offer and how they offer it if they want to continue to attract new customers.”

Millennials who have grown up on video games and who learned during the pandemic how to live their lives without leaving their homes already are having a major impact on the future of businesses of all kinds. Past discussions of internet sales taxes as a meager protection for brick and mortar businesses were one of the beginnings of this trend that gained momentum in the pandemic era when working from home became viable.

Hoosier Park Racing & Casino in Indiana became one of the first casinos to have a Pac-Man video slot machine, in September of 2017. Blackjack revenue for casinos is about half what it was in 1985 when it was responsible for 85% of table game revenues. Richardson noted in his article that casinos already had brought in new games to fill the gap—Caribbean stud, Three Card Poker, and Casino Holdem among them. All can be played remotely—if laws are changed to allow it.

Although Richardson doubts brick and mortar casinos will die out, Mehul Boricha, at Techrival.com has suggested virtual reality casinos could be on the way. He wrote, “Rules and regulations will always continue to influence future casinos. Various regulatory bodies come up with new and stricter policies that online casinos and games have to adopt without losing their grip on their innovation and creativity.” The new world of casino gambling that is being born in front of us will be a challenge not only to tomorrow’s legislature but to the gaming and lottery commissions that will have to regulate it. The gambling industry prefers not to make or be forced to make an investment that will allow regulatory bodies to prepare for the changes they must make to balance public responsibility with private profit.

Marketing Manager Emily Rodgers with driveresearch.com reported on August 2, 2023 that the growing preference for online or mobile app betting among three-quarters of sports bettors indicates a significant shift in the gambling industry towards digital platforms, offering convenience, accessibility, and potentially contributing to the overall increase in sports betting activity worldwide. She says convenience (78%) and easy deposits (75%) are the top reasons people prefer online/mobile sports betting. She argues that these top factors highlight the importance of user-friendly and seamless platforms in the gambling industry, factors that not only attract more bettors but also contribute to increased customer retention and engagement. She says digital channels are in the future for casino gambling, beginning with sports wagering..

Online sports betting revenue is expected to grow at a compounded annual rate (CAGR) of 10% during the next 5 years.

The introduction of AI (artificial intelligence) in sports betting will undoubtedly have a profound impact on the industry. One example is the way systems record information in digitized ledgers  known as blockchain, which is being adopted globally. Blockchain applications will help automate real-time data, expedite payments and wagers, and provide in-the-moment security and monitoring – including cryptocurrency transactions that are not allowed in Missouri, yet.

The sports betting marketplace grew ten-fold from 2019 to 2021 while netting nearly  $7B in revenue from $83B in total bets placed on sports in 2022.

Another report by marketdecipher.com revealed similar findings. In fact, its estimated $85B in bets placed in 2023 is forecast to balloon to $288B total by the end of 2032.

Virtual reality sports betting took a step forward with the launch of the VR22 sports betting  platform last October. The service allows users to take in a 360-degree live gaming experience as if they were there in person. Users can interact with the game or match in real time including the ability to place wagers down to a specific play – and even purchase merchandise or NFTs.

Missouri already has remote betting although it has been on a small scale.  In the past several years, a few of our casinos have had what they call “hybrid” wagering.  If a table is too crowded to allow additional players, gamblers are referred to a computer terminal that lets them place bets at the table as if they were physically there. It has been done on a small scale and has generated generally small profits. But it’s an experiment and it works.  Whether the terminal is fifty feet from the table or 50 miles and at someone else’s table, it is still sports wagering. And it is part of gambling’s future.

Another reason present casinos need to reach the public where it is, instead of waiting for the public to come back, is the threat of widespread competition. It is a very real threat and the first part of it could be in business in a few years.  We’ll talk about that in our next edition.

The Majority Rules, Chapter Two

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A rare race for Speaker of the Missouri House has shaped up after 51.6% of the voters of Missouri approved Amendment 3, the abortion amendment.

For several years, Missouri House Republicans have picked a Speaker-designate during the September veto session who would succeed the outgoing Speaker in January. They have a two-thirds majority, so the decision in September is tantamount to the actual election.

But the November election has injected some uncertainty into the proceedings.

Republicans chose Dr. Jon Patterson of Lee’s Summit as the presumptive successor to Dean Plocher, a St. Louis County Representative who is term limited.

But the election, particularly the approval of Amendment 3, has produced a challenger—Justin Sparks of Wildwood.

Patterson has said the legislature should “respect the law.”  But Sparks says that Patterson’s comment “is not what the leader of the Republican Caucus should be saying.”

Sparks is a member of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus.  His background is in law enforcement as a 15-year veteran of the St. Louis County Police Department and a Deputy U.S. Marshall. He has told St. Louis television station KMOV, “It is clear that many people that voted for Amendment 3 did so under information that was false.” And he asked, “Should three cities determine what everybody lives under for the entire state? I say no.”

Sparks also criticizes Patterson on other issues, especially as a St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial put it, “Patterson’s vote against legislation to prohibit transgender treatments for minors. Patterson, a surgeon, has said he believes there should be exceptions to that prohibition based on case-by-case details — a medically reasonable standard that most in Patterson’s party today reject. As House majority leader, Patterson nonetheless allowed debate on the legislation, which passed.”

The November election tally from the Secretary of State’s office shows Amendment 3 passed 1,527,096-1,432,084., a 95,000 vote margin.  But it passed in only seven of Missouri’s 116 voting areas (114 counties plus the cities of St. Louis and Kansas City).  Voters in the two cities, Jackson and St. Louis Counties were joined by Boone, Clay, and Buchanan Counties with 72.6% of the votes in those areas.  In the rest of the state, Amendment 3 was outvoted 728,042-1,050,088. Boone County was the only county outside the metro areas to vote “yes.”

Patterson and Sparks, both Republicans, won in areas that went heavily in favor of Amendment 3. St. Louis County, where Sparks lives, went for it 335,082-162,311 with St. Louis City going 95,039-19,673. Jackson County was in favor 112,822-78,712 with Kansas City adding a tally of 99,120-23,985.

Two Republicans will face off for one of the most important jobs in state government in January, both from metro areas that provided the margin in the statewide victory for Amendment 3.  One says the will of the whole people of Missouri as well as the will of voters in his home area, should be honored. The other says both should be ignored because that’s not what Republicans are about, in effect saying that they should be a party that does not accept the will of all of the public.

One says all of the voters should make the decision. The other says only one party’s voters count.

Let’s see what kind of Republican Party we have in the Missouri House, come January.

The Majority Rules

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Whatever else we discard during our electoral processes, we maintain the concept of majority rule, whether through the electoral college or, in all other elections, the popular vote.

The system guarantees disappointment for some, gratification for others, and exultation for some, depending on the margin of victory or defeat.

Some have pronounced the Democratic Party dead after the election. That is a mistake. It has not been that long ago that the Republican party was considered to be on life support. We have seen through history many times when one party suffers a disastrous loss only to come back a few years later and regain its prominence. The winning party of 2024 will be the defensive party in 2026 and 2028. The fickleness of American politics gives voters a chance to correct the nation’s course every two and four years.

The majority thinks it has done that this year. But the first chance that those who cast minority votes to turn the tables comes in just two years.

There is no time for self-pity. Likewise, there is no time for superior attitudes.  Now, it is nothing more than a matter of doing. And measuring whether that doing is correct—

—-because voters always have the right to change their minds, to change their parties, and to change their leaders or representatives.

Historian Jon Meacham, one our favorite writers on contemporary events viewed against the background of the past, told Morning Joe the morning after election day, in part:

We’ve had 59 presidential elections in American history and only fifteen of them have unfolded in the electorate that voted yesterday.  So more than two-third of our elections unfolded at a time when women couldn’t vote or black folks couldn’t vote; immigration was even more restrictive.

…The question now is all our Republican friends who said, and I wish I had a quarter for every time someone said this over the last twelve months or so is, “Yeah, I don’t like the way Trump acts, but I liked his policies;” the second point, that I also want a quarter for, is “You guys exaggerate this whole ‘guard rails’ thing.” 

Well, now we’ll find out. And if they were right, and I pray they were—and I don’t say that lightly; I genuinely want to have been wrong, that the constitutional order, that his election result put it too much at risk, that now it’s on those whom the country has entrusted power to prove that we were wrong.

And, look, the success of an incumbent Congress, the incumbent White House, is also the country’s success.  And so I think we take a deep breath. I think citizenship itself is about the hard work, as St. Paul said and President Kennedy used in the coda to his inaugural address, is “being patient in tribulation.” And there are a lot of people this morning who are waking up and feel that the world is ending. There are a lot of people who are waking up who think, “Okay, we’re on the right track.”  The point of America is that we all should be able to have those different views but to move forward together.

I’m not trying to preach here, but that’s what democracy is. It’s disagreeing and dissenting within a common vernacular. And the country’s made a very clear decision and now we’ll find out if, in fact, the folks who have been entrusted with power are worthy of that power.

…The old phrase from Revolutionary times, “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,” and everybody who found this election to be existential, you don’t set those concerns aside. But what you DO do is, you have to watch carefully; you participate in the arena, and the people, the remarkable number of our neighbors and friends who made a different decision now face a test, themselves.

The New York Times ran a lengthy editorial the day after the election emphasizing the responsibilities that this election places on new Trump appointees who will be asked to place loyalty to him over loyalty to country and the responsibility the Senate will assume to act as an independent check and balance on his actions on appointments. But, it says, the ultimate responsibility rests with those who fought at the ballot box for the future course of our country:

…The final responsibility for ensuring the continuity of America’s enduring values lies with its voters. Those who supported Mr. Trump in this election should closely observe his conduct in office to see if it matches their hopes and expectations, and if it does not, they should make their disappointment known and cast votes in the 2026 midterms and in 2028 to put the country back on course. Those who opposed him should not hesitate to raise alarms when he abuses his power, and if he attempts to use government power to retaliate against critics, the world will be watching.

Benjamin Franklin famously admonished the American people that the nation was “a republic, if you can keep it.” Mr. Trump’s election poses a grave threat to that republic, but he will not determine the long-term fate of American democracy. That outcome remains in the hands of the American people. It is the work of the next four years.

We, you and I, have our marching orders regardless of which side we were on a few days ago.  Benjamin Franklin gave them to us a long time ago.

(If you want to read the entire editorial: Opinion | America Makes a Perilous Choice – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

The Rules Don’t Apply to Me

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Four years later, the Leopard still has his spots.

Donald Trump has wasted no time proclaiming in word and deed that rules and laws do not apply to him. After all, his victory “was the greatest political movement of all time.”

He said during his campaign he wanted to be a dictator on day one. He’s not even waiting that long. He’s already ignoring the law and in a dangerous way.

New York Times reporter Ken Bensinger reported earlier this week that Trump “has not submitted a required ethics plan stating he will avoid conflicts of interest.”

The Trump transition team was hired in August “but has refused to participate in the normal handoff process, which typically begins months before the election.” Because of that, the Trump team is barred from national security briefings. The committee also has been denied access to federal agencies. The team reportedly has “an intent” to sign the agreements. But nobody has.

Concerns about Trump’s ethical lapses (to substantially understate the point) in his first term led Congress in 2019 to require candidates to post an ethics plan before the election and how the person would address conflict of issues accusations during their presidential terms, regardless of how far they get in the process.  Trump announced then that he would not divest his assets or put them in a blind trust, as office-holders usually do to separate themselves from making decisions that would benefit them while in office. Bensinger says the watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has identified 3,400-plus Trumpian conflicts in his first four years as President.

Both President Biden and Vice-President Harris  had no trouble signing the agreements during the recently-concluded campaign. But signing them apparently was too inconvenient on the other side. Doing so apparently would distract from cooking up cat-eating conspiracies and fake reports of Venezuelan gangs taking over Colorado apartments.

Frequent Trump critic, Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland, charges Trump is “thumbing his nose” at the requirements. Raskin says refusal to sign the documents keeps the Trump transition team from getting $7.2 million in transition money.  The program puts $5,000 limits on individual donations to the transition effort.  But since Trump refuses to sign the ethics code, he can raise money hand over fist and now have to report who gave it to him.

There’s an even bigger issue that would be trouble for people who think they are not above the law:  Refusal to sign the ethics documents means none of the transition team can get security clearances that will give them access to 438 federal agencies’ records.

But who needs that?  After all, we’re dealing with someone who thinks he knows everything already. Nobody knows the political system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it,” had modestly observed in his first campaign.

Even more recently, Trump demanded that the next leader of the U. S. Senate not stand in the way of his appointments to key positions by letting him make what are called recess appointments.

And those seeking power in the Senate are saying, in effect, “Yes Sir. Whatever you want, sir.”

Recess appointments are intended to respond to emergencies. They can stay in place for a couple of years without seeking advice and consent form the Senate. He has openly said he wants to avoid opposition to his choices. He said on his personal social media site, “Any Republican Senator seeking the coveted LEADERSHIP position in the United States Senate must agree to Recess Appointments…without which we will not be able to get people confirmed in a timely manner.”

Senate confirmation of appointments has been one of the great checks and balances in the American system of government. They demand, on behalf of the American people, accountability from the nominees as well as from the President making the nominations.

Sadly, the three front-runners as Mitch McConnell’s replacement have quickly drunk from the Trump Kool-Aid pitcher on this. Trump favors Florida Senator Rick Scott for the job. His election will tell us a lot about whether the Senate will maintain any independence from the White House.

So far, however, thee’s no guarantee that every other Senator will go along with Trump’s dictates.  Some of those who survived January 6th aren’t happy with plans to pardon many of the peaceful tourists who convinced members of Congress they weren’t interested in tourism. Some also think his tariff plans are impractical. Those who resist will be threatened with well-funded primary opponents in their re-election bids, a visceral threat. Loyalty to him is the only thing that matters with Trump.

Trump also wants all judicial appointments by President Biden halted until Republicans take control of the Senate.  Damn the process! Forget about checks and balances. The only judges fit to sit on the federal bench are those that must prove their loyalty is beyond (or is beneath?) the law alone. That appears to be a no-brainer for the bunch that refused to even let Merritt Garland have a hearing months before the end of the Obama presidency so Trump could get a head start on loading the court.

Last night, the Wall Street Journal reported the Trump transition team is creating an executive order that would establish a so-called “warrior board” of retired general and noncoms to recommend dismissals of generals that Trump considers disloyal, were involved in the Afghanistan withdrawal in 2021 or have suggested policies that are considered too liberal. The report says the generals could be kicked out of the service for “lacking in requisite leadership qualities,” a vague phrase that so far has not been explained by the transition team.

A military loyal to Trump more than it is loyal to the nation and its Constitution is something he promised during his campaign to do.

Well, this is the bed made by those who don’t like his mouth but think his policies are okay.  Forget ethics and laws and constitutional limits on presidential power. Within a week after his election, Donald Trump has blatantly asserted that the rules and the laws do not apply to him.

And he is more than two months away from taking office.

I am terribly scared of this man.

Twentieth Century American Gothic  11/6/24)

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While the nation is still trying to wrap up the most trying political campaign in our lifetime, we are going to look at something or somebody else. It will be something that we hope takes your minds off of what we’ve been through and what lies ahead.

Do you know these folks?

They look kind of familiar.  Where do I know them from?

You and I know them pretty well.  Or maybe not at all.

They are us.

Buzzfeed ran an article on November 4 in which it reported the results after asking Artificial Intelligence to create images of the way typical residents of each state would look. Nancy and I found this piece fascinating as we looked at the images for all of the states.

The same two people provided the faces.  A man and a woman who appear to be in their early 40s, perhaps (?).  The article says the results “reveal the biases and stereotypes that currently exist within AI models.”  Maybe, if we dwell on this deeply enough, we might find they exist with each of us.  Buzzfeed cautioned these people “are not meant to be seen as accurate or full depictions of human experience.”

They look pretty real to us.  But, then, that’s one of the scary things about AI.

It appears AI used a lot of demographic and cultural information to give these folks their special looks. What does it tell us about ourselves?

Nancy and I tried to “read” this Missouri couple. Here’s what we decided.  Both are intelligent with at least some higher education, maybe more than a little. He’s serious and pretty well set in his opinions. He’ll argue with you about them and probably won’t retreat. He’s sure he’s right. She’s her own person, one of substance, curious and considerate of your opinion. She might agree with you eventually, or partly or at least continue the conversation. He’s intense. She’s curious. You might walk away from a conversation with him convinced he thinks of himself as slightly superior.  You might walk away from a conversation with her with something to think about, and she might walk away thinking the same thing.

Who’s the Republican?  Who’s the Democrat?  Either? Both? Is one of them an independent?

What does it take to make them laugh or at least to smile?

If you are from St. Louis, what high school would they have attended?

What’s their favorite television show?

Do they go to church?

On a vacation, does he want to fish and hunt while she wants to hike?

Are they a couple?  Could be. If they are, they probably have some interesting discussions. Do they drink wine?  Yeah, but I think he’s the one more likely to order a beer at dinner. They could be Tiger fans and might even tailgate on Saturdays. They enjoy the company of others.  They don’t join organizations, or very many organizations.  They’re middle-income folks, educated.  If they are a couple, they would have a couple of children probably pre-teens with all of the challenges that comes with them.

Their professions?   Not teachers.  Not lawyers.  Maybe she’s a social worker. Maybe he’s a fireman.  Maybe he runs an auto parts store and she has a fabric store.  Or maybe he sells boats and she’s the administrative assistant to a college dean.

He drives a pickup truck, maybe a Dodge Ram.  She drives a Prius.

What do YOU think? Who are they?  Who are we?  How would we look and dress to show what typical Missourians look like?

If you want to see what this couple looks like in other states, go to:

I Asked AI What The Typical Person From Each State Looks Like, And Here’s What It Came Up With (msn.com)

We found some surprises. We found some that (in our personal stereotypes) were dead on.  We were interested in how they are placed in the pictures of some states’ representatives. Sometimes she’s in front or more by his side..

We love Iowa’s couple and consider them a 21st Century American Gothic, an updated version of Grant Wood’s famous painting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You know what we think would be fun?  Have some folks over and show them the pictures representing each of our states and let the group discuss the things Nancy and I have discussed.

Thirty years ago, Robert Fulgham was a best-selling author of self-understanding books. One of them was Well, What is it You Do? He said, “I—and you—we are infinite, rich, largely contradictory, living, breathing human beings, children of God and the everlasting universe. That’s what we do.”

Maybe that’s a good place to start when you “read” these Missourians.

Spend some time with them and if you would like, tell us in the comments box how YOU read them—and what they say about our state.

The Choice

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We will decide the future of our state and nation tomorrow.

Some argue we will decide the FATE of our nation tomorrow.

We harken back to the story of an English stable owner in the 16th and 17th Centuries who had forty horses, leading customers to think they could choose one from among the forty.  But the stable owner allowed only the horse in the first stall to be rented, believing that he was keeping the best horses from always being chosen.

Customers believing they had many choices actually had only one. Take it or leave it, even if neither was desirable.

The stable owner was named Thomas Hobson, whose name is preserved in the phrase “Hobson’s Choice,” meaning only one thing is really offered while it appears there are other choices and it isn’t particularly desirable.

Many believe that is what we are facing tomorrow, a Hobson’s Choice.

We’ve all survived the weeks of rhetoric, weeks of misstatements and lies, or misinformation from insiders and outsiders on our social media, weeks of efforts to denigrate competing candidates and competing issues.

We have listened to the two sides paint the picture of the other side. And after listening to all of that noise we have concluded that we have these choices at the top of the ticket:

—A candidate who claims to be middle-class child of immigrants whose party has been branded as Marxist and Socialist and a threat to our democracy by the other party.

—A felon, a congenital liar and narcissist whose party is backing him despite complaints that he wants to emulate Hitler and other dictators and is a threat to our democracy.

Thomas Hobson would be greatly entertained.  Take it or leave it when neither choice seems to be desirable.

The political process seems to have given us horses in the first of two stalls in a stable full of better mounts that we can’t have.

This might not be any help to you at all, but let’s skim the surface of the two possibilities.

Both Karl Marx and Adolph Hitler wrote books: Marx’s Das Kapital, and Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

Marx is described as “a German-born philosopher, political theorist, economist, historian, sociologist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist.”  The description is from Wikipedia, which serious researchers caution should not be considered original research. It is an amalgam of the evaluations done by others presumably well-acquainted with a subject.  So, We are going to rely on one of Wikipedia’s sources, English historian Gareth Stedman Jones, whose work focuses on working class history and Marxist theory and who wrote in 2017 in the journal Nature:

“What is extraordinary about Das Kapital is that it offers a still-unrivalled picture of the dynamism of capitalism and its transformation of societies on a global scale. It firmly embedded concepts such as commodity and capital in the lexicon. And it highlights some of the vulnerabilities of capitalism, including its unsettling disruption of states and political systems… it [connects] critical analysis of the economy of his time with its historical roots. In doing so, he inaugurated a debate about how best to reform or transform politics and social relations, which has gone on ever since.”

The same resource describes Hitler as “an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator” of Germany under the Nazi Party that “controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictatorship.”  He wrote his book in prison while serving four years for treason after a failed coup in 1923. The book outlined his plans for Germany’s future, the main thesis being that Germany was in danger from “the Jewish peril,” a conspiracy of Jews to gain world control. It is considered a book on political theory. “For example, Hitler announces his hatred of what he believed to be the world’s two evils: communism and Judaism…Hitler blamed Germany’s chief woes on the parliament…Jews, and Social Democrats, as well as Marxists, though he believed that Marxists, Social Democrats, and the parliament were all working for Jewish interests. He announced that he wanted to destroy the parliamentary system, believing it to be corrupt in principle…”

So there you have it. A choice between an economic theorist whose theories challenge our capitalistic society and a political theorist who used every means necessary to be an all-powerful manipulator of a political system, including mass incarceration and murder of undesirables.

You might have a different evaluation for these two whose partisans have stereotyped each other throughout this campaign.

We had a coworker who once observed, “Stereotypes are so useful because they save a lot of time.”

In American politics, stereotyping saves the voters a lot of thinking.

And that’s too bad.

From our lofty position, we offer this thought;

Economic theories are abstract offerings that do not imprison or murder those who differ from them.  Political theories can create tangible results that, taken to extremes, can produce (in order) division, disrespect, control through, if necessary, mass incarceration and—-at the very worst—murder.

We have two politicians to think about tomorrow.  It’s too bad none of the others in the stable are available.  It’s take it or leave it time.

Which Hobson’s Choice are you going to make?

-0-.

 

Then They Came For Me…..

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Our almost final pre-election meditation today focuses on a former president, a comedian/social commentator/political satirist, a German leader, a Christian movement that might sound familiar, and a Lutheran minister.

We are focusing on Donald Trump’s promotion of “the enemy within” and the failure of people today to recognize the dangers of that philosophy in the past as a warning for us now.

There are several versions of a famous quotation although scholars have found no indication that he was the one who distilled his words into the poetic version in the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. The one we will use here comes from the British Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and is slightly longer.

The Lutheran minister is Martin Niemoëller, an anti-Communist supporter of Adolph Hitler during his rise to power. But he became a leader of German religious leaders opposing Hitler when Hitler announced he supported the German Christians movement that sought to remove the “Jewish element” from Christianity, including portraying Jesus as Aryan, rejecting the Old Testament and trying to rewrite the New Testament. Niemoëller was a leader in the opposition to Hitler and the German Christians.

He was arrested in 1937 and imprisoned at Dachau and Sachsenhausen until American troops liberated the camps in 1945.  The next year, he began a series of speeches apologizing for those who remained silent about Hitler’s crackdowns. Among his comments we find, “The people who were put in camps then were Communists. Who cared about them?…They got rid of the sick, the so-called incurables [who] just cost the state money; they are a burden to themselves and others….”

His apologies came to mind as I watched a recent edition of Jon Stewart’s Daily Show.  Stewart is a liberal comedian and social commentator who has a large following, especially among young people, and is an intellectual critic of American politics and the contradictions within the practice of them.  In this case, we refer to his comments after Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden event.

We have omitted the audience applause and Stewart’s pauses and facial expressions that are part of his schtick.  He inserted several video excerpts of events as part of his program:

Trump at his Madison Square Garden rally; On day one I will launch the largest deportation program in American history to get the criminals out.

Stewart: Day one? Have a snack. Meet the staff.  Day one is typically—we just read the syllabus. There’s no—there’s generally no homework. OK, day one, mass deportation.  How is that going to happen?

Trump: I will invoke the Alien enemies act of 1798.

Stewart: …From the man himself, that is his priority.  From day one, I’m going to round up all the so-called illegal immigrants. It’s a tough policy but I guess it’s gotta be done. And it’s not like anyone else, i.e. legal immigrants or who are American citizens going to be caught up in that dragnet. I’m sure that Trump has a very detailed and precise plan.  How many people are we talking about?

Niemoëller: First they came for the Communists but I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.  

Trump (montage of previous statements at rallies and in interviews); Millions of illegal immigrants.  They think it’s two million; it’s probably five times that amount. You hear 15, 16 million, sometimes you hear 17. We have 21 million, at least 21 million; I think it’s much more than 21.

Stewart: So we are going to be rounding up and deporting between two and 21, or more, million people. But listen, they’re all bad. And they’ve all committed terrible crimes. And we have cataloged—without due process—the terrible things they have done, yes?

Trump (from debate with Kamala Harris): In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there.

Stewart: So, between 2 and 21 million people—and while they weren’t actually doing that, still, chase them with guns. Because at the very least they are here illegally. Yes, they are illegal.

John Berman, CNN, during broadcast: Donald Trump threatening to deport thousands of migrants in the country legally…

Stewart: So that one’s tricky. But I’m confident that on day one, Trump does his mass deportation of anywhere from two to 100 million people, it won’t be you. It’ll be them because of how precise Trump is, especially when it comes to people of color.

Niemoëller: They came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a Socialist.

Trump: I know Willie Brown very well. In fact I went down in a helicopter with him.

(Part of News Nation’s The Hill Sunday excerpt, with Chris Stirewalt): The African-American politician in question was not Willie Brown but rather this man, Nate Holden.

Reporter: Holden says, quote, “Willie is the short Black guy living in San Francisco. I’m a tall black guy living in Los Angeles. I guess we all look alike.”

Stewart: I guess there’s some confusion there. But he’s not deporting California politicians day one. And that story makes him racist. It’s not the point. He really can’t tell white people apart either.

Trump (video from grand jury deposition in the E. Jean Carroll case): Roberta Kaplan asks, “You say Marla’s in this photo?”  Trump: “That’s Marla, yeah. That’s my wife.”  Kaplan: “Which woman are you pointing to?” Trump: (points) “Here.” Kaplan: “That’s Tara. The person you just pointed to is E. Jean Carroll.”  Trump: “Oh, I see. Who is that? (points to another woman in the picture). Kaplan: “And the person, the woman on  your right is your then wife, Ivana?” Trump: “I don’t know.  This was the picture.”

Stewart: You know what I just realized? Donald Trump doesn’t have affairs—just thinks everyone is his wife. So clearly an attempt to deport between thirty and 500 million people is gonna be complicated. So it’s gonna be important to know how carefully the former president would execute this plan.

(Portion of interview on Full Measure, the weekly television news show hosted by Sharryl Attkisson):

Niemoëller: Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.

Attkisson: “A lot of the millions of people have had children here who are American citizens. So, yes to mass deportation of women and children—”  Trump: So we’re going to look at it very closely. They way that you phrase it is exactly right. You put one wrong person on a bus or on an airplane and your radical-left lunatics will try and make it sound like the worst thing that’s ever happened.”

Stewart;  Because it’s the worst thing that ever happened to THEM, the American citizens, the American citizens you mistakenly deport. Yet Trump is like (imitating Trump), “That makes me look like the bad guy.” And why is my wife interviewing me? (a takeoff on his inability to identify people in the photo, shown earlier and a reference to Attkisson) You are my wife, right? Marla? Ivana? Ivanka? I don’t know. This sounds awful. But as everyone knows, you can never listen to what Trump’s saying and hear it.

(Montage of Republicans responding: Unidentified member of Congress: “I think you’re taking everything a little bit too literally.”  New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sunnunu: “Look, Trump speaks in hyperbole. This is nothing new.” KellyeAnn Conway, at the time of the interview the incoming White House counselor: “He’s telling you what was in his heart. You always want to go with what comes out of his mouth rather than what’s in his heart.”

Stewart: You’re right Why hold former presidents to what they say they’re going to do from their mouth holes?… Look. You know what? Sure, maybe Trump’s just talk. But on day one when the deportation of between two and eleventy billion people begins, what will be the guiding principle? Perhaps we should ask the dead-eyed architect of these plans, Stephen Miller.

Miller (at Madison Square Garden rally): America is for Americans and Americans only.

Niemoëller: Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.

Stewart:  Oh, that makes sense. We’re only deporting people who’ve come here illegally, or people who have come here legally but sneaky legally. Or people who have children who actually are citizens, or some people who look like they may have come here illegally, or people who have protested the war in Gaza, or a special prosecutor that Trump doesn’t like, like Jack Smith, which, by the way, name a more American name than Jack (bleeped) Smith. Where are you going to report him to, Faneuil Hall in Boston? Or maybe we just going to be deporting the people that always bring wretchedness and want.

Oh, I’m sorry. That’s how we describe the Irish in 1832 (with image of portrait of New York Mayor Phillip Hone who said, “They will always bring wretchedness and want.”)

Or maybe we’re just going to deport people whose race inherently has a certain kind of criminality.  Oh, I’m sorry, That was the Italians in 1911.

The point is, every one of these groups was at a place and a time on the wrong side of not being American enough. And right now you think you’re safe. Because the group Trump’s people are talking about—It’s not you, as if…Donald Trump can tell the (bleep) difference or even cares that day one implementation of the 1798 law that was last used to intern Japanese and German citizens in World War II, will be a fine-toothed comb.

It just makes me very sad, it—the whole thing—it

(Interrupted by the show’s former senior correspondent, Jessica Williams) Jon, Jon, Jon…Don’t be sad.  Jon, everything’s going to be okay—for you, a white guy, a rich old white guy.

Stewart: You think my rich old white guy privilege will save me?

V: Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Williams; Maybe…It doesn’t matter. Because for non old white people, for people of color, and women, and queer people it’s gonna be a completely different story, all right?

Let me give you some advice.  I know you’re exhausted. Hell, I’m exhausted. Everybody’s exhausted. Anger and disappointment in our political discourse is exhausting. But it’s easy to throw up our hands and be like fine…I’m tired.  Go ahead and take people’s rights…

—–

In one of his 1946 speeches, Niemoëller  wondered what would have happened if thousands of clergy in Germany would have spoken out against Hitler and his German Christians and the disaster and the tragedy they brought to the world.

Niemoëller: … I believe, we Confessing-Church-Christians have every reason to say: mea culpa, mea culpa! We can talk ourselves out of it with the excuse that it would have cost me my head if I had spoken out.

We preferred to keep silent. We are certainly not without guilt/fault, and I ask myself again and again, what would have happened, if in the year 1933 or 1934—there must have been a possibility—14,000 Protestant pastors and all Protestant communities in Germany had defended the truth until their deaths? If we had said back then, it is not right when Hermann Göring simply puts 100,000 Communists in the concentration camps, in order to let them die. I can imagine that perhaps 30,000 to 40,000 Protestant Christians would have had their heads cut off, but I can also imagine that we would have rescued 30–40,000 million [sic] people, because that is what it is costing us now.

Williams: Focus, okay? I just want to be clear, all right? Do not let them exhaust you. Don’t let the constant draining bull— wear you out. Do not turn away. Look it right down that barrel and say, not today, apathy… And no matter what happens, we have to throw our arms around the people who need us the most, and hang…on. All right?

If you want to watch the entire routine, it’s at (15) Jon Stewart on Trump’s Xenophobic MSG Rally & Mass Deportation Plan | The Daily Show – YouTube.

(Photo Credits: Amazon, The Daily Show, Holocaust Museum)

Winning for Missouri: More Like the Mugging of Missouri 

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One last shot at Amendment 2 before next Tuesday’s vote on it. And a warning that this amendment might have far-reaching results that have gone unnoticed.

Unfortunately, these considerations are being offered to late to be circulated enough to make a difference. But let’s put the issues on the record. Or at least, this person’s perspective.  Disagreements are welcome in the box at the end of this entry. We’ll talk about the casino industry’s efforts and we’ll discuss some sports teams questionable claims late in this post.

A key part of the proposed amendment is the sports wagering tax rate—10% —a back door tax cut of about 25% for all forms of gambling.

And here we must note that later we will discuss a clause in the proposed amendment that can lead to later mischief that will further disadvantage the state and its people.

The industry-supported legislation has never defined sports wagering as a special category.is listed as just another kind of game of skill.  In the lengthy list of those allowable games, it has been inserted after “Double down stud” or “any video representation of such games.”

It is that last clause that nobody has talked about.  But it’s important for future developments in the casino industry.  Here’s why.

People are not going to casinos as they once did.  The generation that has spent hours at the slot machines and the tables is dying off. Admissions are almost half what they were a dozen years ago or so.  As this trend continues, the casino industry must find ways to get customers to play these games. If they won’t go to the casinos, the casinos must—in effect—take the games to the consumers. This amendment is a template for later proposals to expand remote wagering to other forms of gambling.

This amendment legalizes remote betting in our casinos for the first time. Some of our casinos already have tested a version of remote gaming within the casinos, calling it “hybrid gaming.” In those casinos, customers who can’t find room at their favorite gaming table have gone to a nearby computer terminal, have set up their account, and have placed bets at the table as if they were there.

The tests haven’t generated much revenue. But the system has been tested.  No matter what the industry calls it, whether it’s fifty feet from the table or fifty miles from the sportsbook, it’s remote wagering. Don’t be surprised if casinos become more involved with it.  And that phrase is going into the constitution if voters approve Amendment Two.

We are not sure if that phrase in the amendment will mean casinos can offer remote betting on table games and slot machines without more legislative action. But it would not be in the proposal if the industry did not have a reason for it being there.

The Casino industry cleverly set the parameters for the discussion of sports wagering early:

—We can’t do sports wagering at 21% (the rate the state established more than three decades ago for table games and slot machines (incidentally, about 85% of casino revenues come from the slots).

—Sports wagering is different from other forms of gambling and needs special treatment.

Neither statement is true.

The industry has consistently claimed sports wagering is unique and requires its own special betting area and its own special tax rate, the latter reason justified differently year-to-year in bills introduced in the legislature.  The first bills proposed a tax rate of 6.25% (the lowest in the nation), 6.75% (the present low), 8%, and 10%.  The industry has seemed to have trouble sticking to its story when advocating a tax rate of less than 21%.

A couple of years ago the Senate tried to make the rate 12% and there was talk that the casinos would compromise on 15% because it was the average of the states around us.  We’ll get to that in a little bit.

The truth is that sports wagering is just another item on the gambling menu and its presence on that list supports that point. But the casinos have tried to get the legislature to believe it is special. And they want voters in a few days to believe it, too, so they can get a cut in overall tax rates (by our calculation) of about 25%.

The industry has never produced any independent studies in any legislative hearing we have attended, to justify the claim that sports wagering is a fragile flower needing lots of TLC, including the low tax. None of the pro-amendment advertising has offered any justification for it either.  And the voters, who understandably don’t closely follow the policy-making, or lack of it, by the legislature are left to make decisions based on thirty-second television commercials of questionable verity.

One industry argument has been that casinos will spend a lot of money establishing a unique area where the sports wagering can take place, an argument that falls apart because all forms of gambling have THEIR unique betting areas.  It’s why you can’t roll dice at a blackjack table. You can’t play poker at the roulette wheel table. You can’t play craps at the poker table and you can’t bet on where the ball will land on the big wheel at the Texas Hold ‘Em table.

There is nothing inherently unique in sports betting, regardless of industry claims. It operates the same way as other forms of wagering.  The consumer has money; the casinos have a system that will take all of it through time. The player at the poker table places a bet. So does a bettor in the sports betting area. The casino processes the bets, paying the winners and keeping the losers’ money. At the end of the day, the casino proceeds go into the same bank account with the proceeds from table games and slot machines.

Every year, the industry seems to have changed its justification for a sweetheart tax rate, raising a simple question that should been asked but never was: “How can the industry’s claims be trusted if it cannot stick to its own story?

In 2019, the industry demanded a 6.75% rate because “that’s what they charge in Las Vegas.”  A quick review of the Nevada gaming laws showed something the industry avoided telling our lawmakers: that 6.75% ALL forms of gambling in Nevada.  The industry also neglected to tell the legislators that the Nevada gaming law allows no deductions and no carryovers of casino losses from one month to the next, as is proposed in Amendment 2.  It was pointed out that the Nevada template would mean that Missouri would have two choices: either lower its present tax rate to 6.75 so all forms of gambling would be treated uniformly or to charge sports wagering a 21% tax.

Here are other reasons offered for a low tax rate:

—The casinos need to keep the extra money to properly promote and advertise this unique form of gambling. A representative of Penn National Gaming told a House committee in 2022 that a higher tax would hinder Missouri’s ability to compete with illegal gaming sites. He said, “When you are able to spend more in marketing, you are able to drive more in volume and revenues.”

The position of the industry that money should be taken away from the education fund and from home dock cities to subsidize promotions and advertising was questionable when the industry was generating revenues of about $1.7 billion at the time. Wouldn’t you think the industry should pay for its own promotions and advertising?

A critic argued that there is no reason the state should subsidize advertising for an industry of that size by reducing funding for the school systems and home dock cities (ten percent of the gaming tax goes to the thirteen host cities of Missouri’s casinos).  Additionally, major betting companies already were advertising on professional sports broadcasts and have stepped up their advertising since.

The proposal for using money traditionally earmarked for the education fund to publicize and promote sports wagering included no accountability language that would have required casinos to show the money actually had been used as proposed instead of just pocketed.

They also claimed the money not given the state in taxes was needed to convince Missourians to quit using illegal betting sites.  We’ll touch on that a little bit later.

—The casinos originally claimed the house advantage in sports wagering is “only” four percent (in 2023 the industry testified it was five percent).  But a study done for the UNLV Center for Gaming Research indicates that four percent is higher than most popular table games, sometimes double or more, and the industry has never asked for a favorable tax rate for table games.

In truth, the house advantage for sports wagering is more than four or even five percent, as the casino industry has claimed in some later legislative committee hearings. The website legalsportsreport.com charts statistics month-by-month in every state from the first month sports wagers were made in that state. As of last Sunday night, the webpage calculated $408-Billion dollars had been wagered in states allowing casino gambling on sports. The casino advantage worked out to 8.6%, more than double what the industry told legislators, and adding up to $35.1 Billion dollars.

Delaware, which has the highest tax on casino revenues, had the highest house advantage—25.1 to 46.5.  Delaware taxes casinos at a 50% and we’ve not heard any organized opposition to it.

Another excuse has been that Missouri needs a low tax rate to compete with surrounding states. Kansas is at 10. Iowa’s rate on casino earnings is 6.75, and according to an industry spokesperson. Missouri needs to have a low tax to keep Missourians from going to another state to place their sports bets.

The industry has presented no independent studies indicating casino customers care about the amount of taxes the casinos pay. In reality, the so-called competition rests on a simple question: Does Missouri have legal sports wagering? If Missouri legalizes it, Missourians presumably will place bets here because they don’t have go to some other state.

The industry also claimed it needs to have a much lower tax so it can pay for building sportsbook facilities within the casinos. If ninety percent or more of sports wagering will be done remotely, there’s not much reason for an elaborate sportsbook.  And, besides, building a sports betting facility in a casino should be considered a normal business expense with its own tax implications at the end of the business year.

This amendment has been called a “compromise between the stakeholders”—the six professional sports teams, the casino industry, and the remote betting industry” by St. Louis Cardinals president Bill DeWitt III.

But there are far more stakeholders than that. None of their representatives were invited to work on this “compromise.” Where were representatives of public education, host cities, veterans, the Access Missouri Scholarship Program, the National Guard program that provides veterans’ funeral escorts, people who develop gambling problems (we have seen several studies indicating those problems will triple with sports wagering), or even the Missouri Gaming Commission?

Here’s an answer: They were not invited because they were not considered participants in drafting gambling policy. Instead, they are industry targets whose only usefulness is based on how much money the industry can take from them or keep from programs benefitting them.

There’s one more stakeholder. The legislature, hired by the citizens to protect their interests. But the legislature has been MIA in protecting its constituents. The “compromise” is not a compromise at all.  It was, instead, an agreement to have the legislature give each of the stakeholders what they want. When the legislature fumbled several chances to satisfy the teams and the casinos, Amendment 2 was created.

It’s important as we reach the conclusion of these discussions to ask, “How did we reach this point?”

One reason this issue is on the ballot is that the legislature refused to resolve a competing issue—the legality of the gambling machines in many of our convenience stores, Video Lottery Terminals.

Supporters of video lottery terminals, while professing that they are legal, want the legislature to make them legal. The casinos see them as competing for their slot machine revenues and have not allowed an up-or-down vote on the VLT bills.  Supporters of the VLTs have filibustered the sports wagering legislation, demanding VLT legalization legislation be part of any sports wagering measure. The stalemate, especially in the Senate, has been a key factor in the pretty disgraceful deadlocks there that have resulted in historically-low levels of bill passage during the last three sessions.

The legislature lacked the courage in the face of extensive and aggressive lobbying by the casino industry to establish policies protecting the state’s interests and year after year considered the industry proposals without question. Only once that I recall did I hear a legislative committee member seriously press the chief industry lobbyist on some of these issues—Senator Denny Hoskins who was the leader in the unsuccessful efforts to legalize VLTs—was told he was out of time before he had finished his questioning. The replies he had received were vague at best.

A couple of years ago, I talked to the sponsor of a bill raising the tax rate to ten percent. A year earlier he had sponsored the industry’s bill that set the rate at eight percent. “What’s magical about ten percent?” I asked. “Last year it was only eight.”

He responded, “I figured that if ten was good enough for Jesus it was good enough for me.”

I was stunned for a second or two, and when I recovered my composure, I asked, “Jesus had twelve disciples not ten.  Can I get you up to 12?”

All I got in response was a smirk.

I found his responses to my questions arrogant, disrespectful, and dismissive. While I would not use the same phrases to characterize those who have advocated for this legislation, I think it is accurate to say there has been a certain confidence on their part that no outside opinions would be tolerated in the annual legalization efforts.

The legislature’s refusal to challenge industry-backed bills year after year is an indication of who has been in charge of things in the Capitol on this issue. Its inability to deliver what the industry—and in the last few years, the pro sports teams—wanted means the issue is likely to be put into the Missouri Constitution next week and the legislature will not be able to change things to protect the interests of the people of Missouri very easily.

I expect the mugging of Missouri and its people to succeed next Tuesday.  And we can thank a few generations of the people we think represent us at the Capitol for aiding and abetting it through their inaction.

 

 

Ephesians 6:11 

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This is the Bible verse that Donald Trump’s evangelical supporters cite to show that God kept him from being assassinated this summer in Pennsylvania.  Since the shooting occurred at 6:11 p.m., some of those who thump Bibles that he uses for fun and profit more than he uses them for any guidance claim God wants him to win next week’s election.

It is an absurd example of using the Bible by taking one verse out of context or of avoiding all of the other 6:11 verses in the Bible.

Ephesians 6:11 is a manmade division of the scriptures and 6:11 might easily have been some other chapter and verse had not Robert Etienne, a printer in Paris, divided the Greek New Testament as he did, into the chapters and verses in 1551.  He used his system when he published the Hebrew Bible two years later.

The sixth chapter of Paul’s letter to the Christians at Ephesus contains 24 verses.

Reading the entire letter in which Paul defines what it takes to be a Christian does not work very well for those who grant the ex-President holy status.  Chapters five and six seem more applicable to Mr. Trump than the out-of-context verse 11.

In these two chapters, Paul tells the Ephesians to be “imitators of God” and to “walk in love.”

“Among you…there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or any kind of impurity or of greed,” he tells them.  That seems more applicable to the candidate than the one that, it is claimed, clipped his ear.

“Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk, or crude joking…No immoral, impure, or greedy person…has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God,” he advises the Ephesians.  Hmmmm. That seems to fit somebody we know more than one verse that some think means God is on his side.

Paul advises them (and us, if we think the scriptures have any contemporary relevance), “Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things the wrath of God is coming on the sons of disobedience.”  Sons of disobedience might fit the speeches and subsequent events of January 6, 2021 more than explaining how someone’s life was “spared” in a shooting.

Elsewhere in that chapter he advises people to “have no fellowship with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them, for it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret.”  Mr. Trump brands those who expose “fruitless deeds” as “Fake News.”

There’s some great advice about how husbands and wives should treat each other that might do him some good or might have done him some good.

The sixth chapter, the one in which the evangelistic supporters pluck out of context to prove it was God who caused the shooter to carefully miss the speaker that day in Ohio, addresses children and parents.

It also tells slaves how to behave. And he offers advice to their masters.  As we recall, slavery was ended, although at terrible cost, by a war that Mr. Trump says could have been avoided if Abraham Lincoln had negotiated.

If Mr. Trump had any sense of history he would know that negotiations had gone on for decades, even before the anti-slavery language was removed from the Declaration of Independence almost 250 years ago.  Missouri came into the union in 1821 because of heavy discussions about slavery that led to a mutual appeasement policy that let the debate rage on.  Lincoln took office telling the South he did not want to end slavery; he just didn’t want it to expand to newer states.

We have an idea of what Mr. Trump’s solution would have been had he been in Lincoln’s place in 1861: let the states decide.

And that brings us to the celebrated eleventh verse and the later verses that it is easy to ignore for those who want religion to focus on power.

Paul was writing from a Roman prison to the Christians in Ephesus who had seen many pilgrims make trips to worship a pagan god.

The twelfth verse reads, “For our struggle is not against the flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this world’s darkness, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

Do you suppose that could be read to mean we should be more concerned about Vladimir Putin, President Xi and Supreme Leader Kim than we should be about a non-existent flood of fentanyl-lugging criminals and mental patients released from Central American prisons and mental hospitals so they can come here and take over Colorado apartment buildings and eat our pets?

“Take up the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you will be able to stand your ground…Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, and the breastplate of righteousness arrayed,” says verses thirteen and fourteen.  Unfortunately for the “belt of truth,” Mr. Trump seems to be a suspenders sort of guy.

And righteousness?  Calling people names after they have spoken out about your love of Hitler, your respect for dictators, and your various slanders and assaults, verbal and otherwise, on individuals and institutions—-is that an example of righteousness all of us should follow?

Near the end of Chapter Six, Paul asks the Ephesians to “pray in the spirit at all times, with every kind of prayer and petition.”

I’m waiting for Mr. Trump to open one of his rallies with an off-the-cuff prayer. I worry, however, how I could tolerate a two-hour prayer

He certainly had his chances twice in one day last week—at a “Believers and Ballots Faith Town Hallk in Zebulon, Georgia and a Turning Point event right after that in Duluth, Georgia.

Sarah Posner, in an opinion piece for MSNBC (or as Trump likes to call it “MSDNC,” for Democratic National Committee, wrote that one the participants in the town hall meeting, held at a church, asked Trump about a new survey showing 32 million regular church goers might not vote this fall.  When the questioner asked him for a message to those voters encouraging them to vote, the best he could do was respond, “Christians are not tremendous voters,”  which might be a surprise to a lot of us. Then, she reports, he “rambled for nearly three minutes on themes of religious persecution by ‘not nice’ and ‘stupid’ people, guns and COVID restrictions, without completing coherent sentences or thoughts.”

Turning Point is run by conservative evangelical Charlie Kirk, who also is an election denier. The AP reported that Kirk called this election “a spiritual battle,” and charged Democrats “stand for everything God hates.”  Posner says Kirk and another conservative, Jack Posobiec, have been the big promoters of the Ephesians 6:11 protection plan.

She concludes, “Amid GOP panic over losing women and swing voters who support abortion rights, Trump appears adrift in his evangelical mobilization, meandering through disconnected verbal thickets of insults and boasts, unable to focus on issues or hammer home talking points.”

We don’t want to exhaust our participants in these discussions much more than we already have. But we decided to look up some other 6:11 Bible verses, chosen at random.

Genesis 6:11 says “Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence.” So God authorized the great flood.

The sixth chapter of Ruth has some good advice for somebody on our ballot next week, beginning a verse earlier:

“10 For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. 11But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness.”

The sixth chapter of Matthew offers some caution to those who make good social and political hay from religious organizations. It begins with “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.”  This is the chapter that includes the Lord’s prayer and Verse eleven prays, “Give us, this day, our daily bread.”

First Timothy, 6:11 reads, “…Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness.”  Nice, but it doesn’t seem to describe the person who survived an assassination attempt.

We could go on but we will not, to your great relief we are sure. We close with the Sixth Psalm that does not have an eleventh verse.  But its ten verses seem to fit our situation.

1 Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger
or discipline me in your wrath.
2 Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am faint;
heal me, Lord, for my bones are in agony.
3 My soul is in deep anguish.
How long, Lord, how long?

4 Turn, Lord, and deliver me;
save me because of your unfailing love.
5 Among the dead no one proclaims your name.
Who praises you from the grave?

6 I am worn out from my groaning.

All night long I flood my bed with weeping
and drench my couch with tears.
7 My eyes grow weak with sorrow;
they fail because of all my foes.

8 Away from me, all you who do evil,
for the Lord has heard my weeping.
9 The Lord has heard my cry for mercy;
the Lord accepts my prayer.
10 All my enemies will be overwhelmed with shame and anguish;
they will turn back and suddenly be put to shame.