Category Archives: religion

Traditional?

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Donald Trump, who often has accused his accusers of engaging in witch hunts, appears to be off on a witch hunt of his own, a witch being anyone who does not advocate “traditional views.”  HIS “traditional views.”

We hope somebody asks him for a comprehensive definition of “traditional views” so that I know whether I am involved in “domestic terrorism,” another subject that it would be entertaining to hear him define.

During the weekend a memo written by loyalist Pam Bondi, whom Trump has designated to supervise the Justice (rather loosely defined these day) Department, was leaked. It tells the DOJ to put together a list of “domestic terrorism” groups.

What constitutes such a group?

It is what the Trump/Bondi DOJ chooses to consider “extreme viewpoints on immigration, radical gender ideology, and anti-American sentiment.”

In other words, it’s those who disagree with President Trump who, in our observation, is never going to rival Noah Webster in defining words and terms.

Reporter Ken Klippenstein revealed the memo.  And who is he?

An interesting character. Young, used to work for The Intercept, a nonprofit news organization considered to be well into the political west wing, a former correspondent for The Nation, a  liberal magazine, and a part of the growing online news world. His father is a theoretical chemist at the Argonne National Laboratory. He says his mother’s family was undocumented immigrants from El Salvador.  College grad with a degree in English literature. He has broken other stories using leaked material, too.

We wonder how quickly his name is in a Pamagram sent to the list.

Trump is not the first ruler to impose his “traditional views” on the people.

Tomás de Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition from 1483 to 1498 under appointment of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, the patrons of Christopher Columbus who ventured forth during a period of extreme persecution of Jews and Muslims to spread those traditional (Christian) views to whatever heathens he found when he arrived someplace that he did not know he was going to.

Going back even earlier, we can talk about Pope Stephen VI, who in a remarkable fifteen months pulled all kinds of stunts including the calling of the infamous Cadaver Synod in which he put his dead predecessor on trial for perjury and the illegal assumption of the papacy.  He dug up the corpse of Pope Formosus, put papal vestments on it, propped it up on a throne and had a mock trial.

The corpse did not mount much of a defense and after being found guilty was stripped of his vestments and ceremonially maimed (three of his fingers were cut off) before the remains of his remains were thrown into the Tiber River. There was widespread disapproval of Pope Steve’s definition of “traditional views” and he wound up in prison where he was strangled to death, apparently by non-traditionalists.

Long before Russia had Stalin and his “traditional views,” it had Ivan the Terrible—Ivan IV—who reigned for more than fifty years. He, too, started by promising reforms but quickly was consumed by paranoia and formed his own secret police that terrorized and murdered his subjects by the thousands, one of who was his own son.

Romania in 15th century had Vlad III who once ordered 20,000 enemy soldiers impaled, their bodies remaining on display as a warning against disloyalty. Vlad the Impaler, he is still called.

His cruelty wasn’t just reserved for outsiders; he targeted his own people as well. Vlad would punish dishonesty and laziness with extreme torture, sometimes impaling entire villages. Laziness and dishonesty also were abhorred by our Puritan ancestors, but they just stuck people in the stocks for a few hours—

—Unless they were witches.  Hanging, pressing, and drowning seemed to have been the Puritan Christian cures for those tendencies.

As far as I know, nobody has accused President Trump of being a Puritan. So we’d appreciate it if he’d offer a clear explanation of his terms sometime when he’s awake and not playing the Game of Invective all night on his social media account.

We don’t want to spend any more time—although we could—listing other rulers who sought to protect “traditional values” as they defined them. And we certainly don’t want to suggest that President Trump fits the mold of those we have cited and others on various lists of vengeful rulers. But punishment for differing with any ruler who considers himself the only one to define “traditional values” has a past that must raise questions about a person of questionable personal ethics setting a national agenda for you and me.

The Trump memo also demands creation of “a national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts.”

The President’s definition of “domestic terrorism threat” as being any organization that uses “violence or the threat of violence” to oppose “law and immigration enforcement, extreme views in favor of mass migration and open borders, adherence to radical gender theology, anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, or anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government” and the aforementioned “hostility towards traditional views on family, religion, and morality.”

Except for MAGA and January 6, 2021 celebrants.

You will excuse me, I hope, if I cannot consider Donald J. Trump in any way fit to determine nation’s views “on family, religion, and morality.”

The Constitution aside, this is a pretty broad mission for our national ruler. Just about everybody falls into one of these categories in one way or another, including me. And you.

Apparently, however, there is a way that we can become immune to prosecution under this policy. We just have to cough up a nine or ten-figure amount to pay for decoration of the monstrosity of a Trump Worship Center that will stand for decades as a tribute to his bad tase and his desire to have more monuments to himself than anybody since the ancient Egyptian pharaohs.

I’m going to put an orange jumpsuit on my Christmas gift list to make sure I’m properly dressed when the traditional values Pamgoons come for me.

 

 

The Thin Line

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Sometimes when we get all puffed up about how important we are, we need to be reminded not much separates us from our knuckle-dragging ancestors or our three-living cousins.

I have a t-shirt given to me by a good friend who just retired as the Executive Vice President of the Indianapolis Zoological Society.  More important for our discussion today, Karen Burns is the Executive Director of the Indianapolis Prize, considered the Nobel Prize for animal conservation.  Every two years, the organization recognizes an animal conservationist “who has achieved major victories in advancing the sustainability of an animal sp;ecies or group of species” with a $250,000 award.

This year’s award has gone to Dr. Rene deRoland, a Malagasy scientist who has discovered several new species or re-discovered some species thought to be extinct. He has helped establish four national protected areas and heads a team of 48 conservationists wildlife and landscapes in his home country.

The t-shirt is a reminder that there is a thin line between us and members of other branches of our genetic tree, a reminder, perhaps, that Genesis gives humans dominion over other creatures in the sea, in the air, and on the ground. Dominion, not domination.

Dominion, as in caring for. Domination, as in destroying.

The Indianapolis Zoo has special facilities for Orangutans and for Chimpanzees.

There are times when I have to fill in as a Sunday school teacher and when I do, I like to turn to a source called The Wired Word that tries to place contemporary events within the scriptures.  One of the recent lessons focused on Jane Goodall’s life and our place in creation. I’m passing part of it along because her life story and its worldwide impact go beyond standard death news stories and gets to one of the ongoing great challenges humans must consider.

Regardless of whether you follow the lesson’s efforts to tie her work to scripture or whether the direction of the lesson raises questions about your personal view of the world and our place in it, I think you might find a thing or two to think about.

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Famed Primatologist Jane Goodall Dead at 91
The Wired Word for the Week of October 12, 2025

In the News

The Jane Goodall Institute announced its founder, Jane Goodall, the world’s foremost expert on chimpanzees, died of natural causes on October 1 while in California for one of the 300 speeches she gave most years even into her ninth decade. The 91-year-old animal welfare advocate is survived by her son, Hugo, and three grandchildren.

In 1957, paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey recruited Goodall to conduct the first intensive study of wild chimpanzees in their natural habitat in Gombe, Tanzania.

Goodall noted the complex structure of the primate world, noting their distinct personalities, intelligence, sense of humor and wide range of emotions, from happiness, love, empathy, kindness and tenderness, to anger, sorrow, fear, depression and hostility. The primatologist witnessed the chimps hunting, grooming, playing, fighting, showing affection, adopting other chimpanzees, and comforting each other.

Her reports of a chimpanzee she named David Greybeard making a tool from twigs to fish termites from a nest mesmerized the scientific community, which had previously held the view that tool-making was a skill only humans possessed.

When Leakey learned of her discovery, he responded with this telegram:

NOW WE MUST REDEFINE TOOL STOP

REDEFINE MAN STOP

OR ACCEPT CHIMPANZEES AS HUMAN

“What the chimps have taught me over the years is they’re so like us. They’ve blurred the line between humans and animals,” Goodall said. Her discoveries nudged the public, including the scientific community, to reexamine how we understand who we are as a species.

In 1986, Goodall attended a conference of chimpanzee researchers where she was devastated by reports of how wild habitat destruction was negatively impacting chimpanzee populations.

“I arrived at the conference as a scientist. I left as an activist,” she remarked. Determined to do everything in her power to protect and preserve the environment, she became a kind of “global educator-at-large.”

“The least I can do is speak out for those who cannot speak for themselves,” the zoologist said.

“In the rainforest [is] … where I felt that deep, spiritual connection to the natural world, and also came to understand the interconnectedness of all living things in this tapestry of life where each species, no matter how insignificant, plays a probably vital role in the whole pattern.”

Goodall remarked that indigenous people and those who practice various religions often see animals as our brothers and sisters, as those who should be cared for by humans, and who provide humans with various benefits as well. She realized that working for animal welfare went hand in hand with addressing human needs as well.

In a 2020 interview with Krista Tippett, Goodall remarked about our ability “to ask questions like, Who am I? Why am I here? What is the purpose of it all? Is there a purpose? Is there a spiritual guiding force out there? … there is no way that what’s happened is just chance. What that intelligence behind the universe is — what it is, who it is; probably what it is — I haven’t the faintest idea, but I’m absolutely sure that there is something. And seeking for that something is part of being human.”

In a video interview recorded shortly before Goodall’s death, released only after her passing, she shared the final message she felt compelled to give the world, which included these words: “each and every one of you has a role to play. … your life matters, and you are here for a reason, … every single day you live, you make a difference in the world, and you get to choose the difference that you make. … Don’t lose hope. … And if you want to save what is still beautiful in this world, if you want to save the planet for the future generations, your grandchildren, their grandchildren, then think about the actions you take each day, because multiplied a million, a billion times, even small actions will make for great change.”

Applying the News Story

As Goodall’s celebrity increased, she sometimes had to gently correct fans who idolized her. One woman once greeted her, shrieking, “Oh my God!” to which she wryly replied, “I’m not your God. I’m just Jane.”

The incident is reminiscent of the time when crowds of people wanted to offer sacrifices to Paul and Barnabas as though they were gods, after Paul healed a lame man, when Paul insisted, “We are mortals just like you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them” (Acts 14:8-18).

Use the news to consider what nature and our faith have to teach us about what it means to be human and how we fit into God’s design for creation.

The Big Questions

  1. What is your earliest memory of some aspect of the natural world?
  2. How are humans and other creatures alike? How are humans different from other creatures?
  3. How would you describe the relationship between faith and science?
  4. Goodall seemed to delight in the knowledge that humans are part of the natural world. But some theorize that humans are superior to or separate from the rest of creation. How do you see your own relationship to nature, and what role does your faith play in how you understand that relationship?
  5. Where in the Bible do you find indications of high regard and care for animals, and what does that suggest to you about how we should interact with other creatures on Earth?

Confronting the News With Scripture and Hope
Here are some Bible verses to guide your discussion:

Genesis 2:18-20
Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.” So out of the ground the LORD God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air and brought them to the man to see what he would call them, and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle and to the birds of the air and to every animal of the field, but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner. (For context, read Genesis 2:18-24.)

Goodall was criticized by some scientists for giving the chimps with whom she lived names like David Greybeard, Flo, Flint and Fifi, because the prevailing practice was to give animals numbers rather than names. Eventually, Goodall’s unconventional method became more accepted, because it helped people view chimps as unique individuals.

Questions: Why do you think God gave the man the task of naming the animals? In what contexts might humans be given a number rather than a name? What difference does it make whether an animal or a human is given a number rather than a name?

Genesis 6:19-21
And of every living thing, of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. Of the birds according to their kinds and of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground according to its kind, two of every kind shall come in to you, to keep them alive. Also take with you every kind of food that is eaten, and store it up, and it shall serve as food for you and for them.” (For context, read Genesis 6:11-22.)

This flood narrative begins with an explanation for the coming destruction: that the earth was filled with violence and corruption (vv. 11-13). God gave Noah instructions for the building of an ark, to save him and his family, as well as representatives of all the animals on the earth, “to keep them alive with you” (vv. 14-21). He was also to take provisions to sustain them and the animals, so that they would not suffer extinction.

Questions: Whether you interpret the flood narrative literally or figuratively, what impresses you about God’s instructions to Noah, with regard to the animals? Why not exclude certain creatures that might be troublesome or dangerous at times?

Job 12:7-10
[Job said,] “But ask the animals, and they will teach you, the birds of the air, and they will tell you; ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you, and the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this? In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of every human being.” (For context, read Job 12:7-16.)

Job was frustrated by the sanctimonious attitude of his friends, who suggested that his adversities were probably due to some moral failure on his part. But Job claimed that they needed to learn a lesson from the animals, birds, plants and fish, who were all aware that the life of every living thing is in the hand of the Lord. What is true for every aspect of creation, from whether it thrives, survives, or perishes, to what kind of weather happens on any given day, is also true of humans: All of this depends on God’s sovereign will.

Questions: How does one go about “asking animals, birds, plants and fish” questions? Goodall said Leakey chose her to research wild chimps because she had an “open mind.” How can we open our minds to learn what God’s creatures might have to teach us — about God? About creation? About ourselves? About our relationships with other humans and with God?

Colossians 1:15-16
[Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers — all things have been created through him and for him. (For context, read Colossians 1:15-20.)

John of Patmos echoes the sentiment in this text when he writes that in his vision of heaven, the four living creatures worship God and the 24 elders cast their crowns before the throne of God, declaring, “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created” (Revelation 4:11). Elsewhere Paul writes that “there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.” (1 Corinthians 8:5-6).

Goodall often spoke of a “Great Spirit in Whom ‘we live and move and have our being.'”

Questions: In what sense are all things created for God and for Christ? If it is true that we exist for God and for Christ, how will we fulfill the purpose for which we were created?

For Further Discussion

  1. “According to my calculations, reality is this very second,” wrote Barbara Johnson, in “A Hearty Ha, Ha, Ha!” in the anthology, She Who Laughs, Lasts!“You see, yesterday is only a memory, and tomorrow is merely a dream. Today is an illusion. That leaves this one second. Every day you have 86,400 seconds. But they come only one at a time. In your bank account of time, no balance is carried over until the next day. You use those seconds or lose them. There is no chance to reinvest. Make your investment wisely …”How can we ensure that we are using our 86,400 seconds wisely, so that at the end of our lives, we can be confident that we have fulfilled the role for which God put us on the Earth?
  2. Comment on this, from Pope Francis, in his encyclical On Care for Our Common Home [Laudato Si’]: “A true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor. … Everything is connected. Concern for the environment thus needs to be joined to a sincere love for our fellow human beings and an unwavering commitment to resolving the problems of society.”
  3. In a 2020 interview, Goodall said: “I think probably, my very favorite individual tree has to be Beech, in my garden. And when Beech began to grow, over 100 years ago, actually, it was from a pretty tiny seed. And if I had picked it up at that time, it would’ve seemed so small and weak, a little growing shoot and a few little roots.”And yet, there is what I call magic. It’s a life force in that little seed, so powerful that to reach the water that the tree will need, those little roots can work through rocks and eventually, push them aside. And that little shoot, to reach the sunlight which the tree will need for photosynthesis, can work its way through cracks in a brick wall, and eventually, knock it down.

    “And so we see the bricks and the walls as all the problems, social and environmental, that we have inflicted on the planet. So it’s a message of hope: hundreds and thousands of young people around the world can break through and can make this a better world.”

    What message does the Parable of the Beech Seed convey to you today?

  4. Discuss this: Educator Rachel Klinger Cain distinguishes between what she calls vertical morality (“the idea that morality comes from authority above”) and horizontal morality (which “prioritizes the well-being of our neighbors, communities and personal relationships,” according to author April Ajoy).”We act in ways that cause the least amount of harm to those around us, regardless of beliefs,” explains Ajoy. “Someone with vertical morality may help someone in need because they believe that’s what God wants them to do, … [while] someone with horizontal morality may help that same person for the benefit of the person that needs help.”

    People who practice horizontal morality, Ajoy says, actually come closest to a Christ-like approach, because doing so also acknowledges vertical morality. She points to Matthew 25, where Jesus says those who met the needs of the hungry, the naked, the stranger, the sick and the prisoner (horizontal morality) were showing love to him (vertical morality).

    “There’s a quote I heard often growing up … that says, ‘Some Christians are so heavenly-minded that they’re no earthly good.’ And I think that perfectly sums up the risks of holding solely to a vertical morality,” Ajoy says. “Our history is full of instances of Christians causing human suffering because they believed they were obeying God. And God’s will can be manipulated and weaponized for all sorts of harm.”

Responding to the News

Brainstorm how you and your church can encourage greater connection with the natural world, as a way to worship the Creator and learn how to more effectively care for the world God made.

Prayer suggested by Psalm 104:10-31; Genesis 1:24-31; Genesis 2:15; 1 Chronicles 29:11-13; Psalm 24:1-2; Matthew 6:25-34

O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. You provided plants for humans and animals to eat, and gave humans the responsibility to care for the natural world, and that design was very good. All that is in the heavens and on the earth is yours; we all belong to you. Teach us to care for your creation just as you care for the birds of the air, the lilies of the field, the lowliest earthworm and the grass which is here today and gone tomorrow, so that you may rejoice in your human children just as you rejoice in all the rest of your creation. For your glory, we pray. Amen.

Copyright 2025 Communication Resources

And let us add—-don’t forget: 96.4%.

I Am An American Citizen 

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I am a citizen of the United States of America, not because of anything I have done to deserve it but because it is my birthright. I was born here and that is all I need.  I am not the child of former slaves but, instead, am a descendant of a long line of white Northern Europeans who came here for the same reason brown people from the central and southern American continent come here today—with hope and for opportunity.

I am an American Citizen, a hyphenated German-French-Scots-Irish-English-American, whose ancestors by their everyday lives helped this country achieve a greatness too easily given away. I am married to a Swedish-American Citizen whose ancestors came here for the same reasons mine did—with hope, seeking a better and safer life than they had and could have in their old countries.  We are proud of our hyphens.

I am an American Citizen because the first person with my name settled in Virginia on land granted him by Queen Elizabeth I because of his work as the captain of a privateer who fought pirates on the Spanish Main. The first name is a common one in the family and carries with it genetic linkages to a courageous forefather.

I am American Citizen proud of the good that our country has achieved regardless of how increasingly embarrassed I might be with what its contemporary leadership wants it to be.

I am an American Citizen who loves his country even when given manifold opportunities to dislike it.

I am an American Citizen free to practice my religion but not free to force others to adopt it, and free to object to those who by social or legal means try to force their religion on me.

I am an American Citizen who respects the National Guard but will oppose a National Police. I will not show an identity card to one of them who greets me at my polling place or anywhere else. Nor will I acknowledge them as I walk freely down any street where they have been directed to patrol.

I am an American Citizen who believes my voting records are between me and my county election authority and no one, not even a federal agency, has any right to them.

I am an American Citizen who believes I can call myself by any party name I wish at any time in my life, and—in fact—have spent my life loyal to no party, which also is my right as an American Citizen.

I am an American Citizen unafraid of my past, knowing that slavery WAS “that bad,” and acknowledging that some members of the southern branch of my family undoubtedly owned black people. I will not apologize for them; the historical records are unavoidable despite any efforts to obscure them. The “original sin” of America remains a sin only if we continue to avoid responsibilities all of us share with and for each other regardless of color, heritage, belief, or self-identity today.

I am an American Citizen who believes acknowledging the past and moving to correct its faults is a mark of national greatness, who believes it takes more courage to correct than to hide, that hiding is a sign of American Cowardice. Progress, not regression, makes greatness.

I am an American Citizen who cherishes my right to see, to hear, to read, to learn, and to therefore think and act, a library board president who will vigorously oppose all who profess to be the ones who can dictate truth or limit opportunities to find it, an information consumer who abhors the consolidation of media on the basis of financial self-interest above the public interest, particularly that segment overseen by a federal government agency with licensing power that wants to control the variety of voices we once had and must regain.                                                                                                                            I am an American Citizen who refuses to believe that all other rights in all other amendments are possible because of the Second Amendment.

I am an American Citizen who believes none of the other amendments would be possible without the FIRST Amendment. In particular, I believe all have a right to responsible speech, agreeable to me or not and the right to petition our government for redress of infringements on the rights granted to me by national documents and physical heritage.

I am an American Citizen who will not tolerate those who seek power or seek to maintain it through division, derision, and disrespect.

I am an American Citizen because I believe we can be better tomorrow than today, by building on the best of what we have been, not tearing down the good that we are.

I am an American citizen who does not believe in the melting-pot but instead believes we are a stew made tastier by the separate ingredients that meld, not melt, within the national bowl.

I am an American Citizen who hates hate except toward those who fuel hate, take advantage of hate, and themselves hate others.

I am an American Citizen who fears not the present because he remembers the past and therefore can hope for a better future. .

I am an American Citizen who needs not wrap himself in the flag to proclaim his patriotism but will display his love of country in his daily living and his daily defense of all who seek, as our founders put it, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

I am an American Citizen because I will not give up on my country, be accused of giving up on my country, or being told I must leave behind the country where I have lived for all of my life.

I am American Citizen who will not live by bumper sticker mottos but lives by thought and deed, and the words of Thomas Wolfe:

…To every man his chance—to every man, regardless of his birth, his shining, golden opportunity—to every man the right to live, to work, to be himself, and to become whatever thing his manhood and his vision can combine to make him — this, seeker, is the promise of America.

I am an American Citizen who will never forsake that promise—

—because I have lived it.

I

Am

An

AMERICAN

CITIZEN!

(Advertisement is from the Columbia Daily Tribune, probably in the 70s; Cartoon by Wiley Miller, distributed by Andrews McMeel Publishing)

The Sayings of Charlie

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One side lionizes him. Another side vilifies him.  It should not be hard for both sides to agree that Charlie Kirk was a divisive figure, which is not altogether bad at times because properly-presented division should trigger properly presented discussion.

—In  an ideal world anyway.

n an ideal world anyway.Some speakers are provocative for the purposes of dividing people. Others speakers are provocative as a way to bring people together. Will the passage of time and the softening of partisan passions that time-borne perspective brings produce more productive understandings than these times now allow?

We present to you today a lengthy series of quotes from Charlie Kirk whose recent assassination is a national tragedy regardless of the spectrum with which we observe our political world. We have found some comments that we think apply to his side of the aisle as much as he applied them to the other side. We have found a few that almost sound a little liberal.

Put together from brainyquote.com and msn.com, these quotations, and a couple of others from Snopes, we think, gives us a peek at the character of the man. Some who read these entries will enthusiastically agree with everything he said. Some will enthusiastically disagree with everything he said.

Was he playing the game of divide and conquer?  Was he trying to encourage the other side to cross over into unity?

In the emotion that comes with tragedy, acknowledging greatness or acknowledging something far less is easy. The sharpness of the differences is a reflection on him as well as a reflection of us.

Perhaps the healthiest thing to do with Charlie Kirk’s verbal legacy is to ask ourselves why we react to his words as we did when he spoke them—-and how we can get beyond those differences, if we have the courage to look within ourselves to do so.

Five years from now, ten years from now, when the emotional response to tragedy had passed, how do you suppose we as individuals as well as we as a nation will think about the things he said—if we remember them at all?

When you reach the end, you might rightfully ask, “Did he really say all these things?”

Factcheck.org put out a lengthy piece asking the same question and answering it. We suggest it will be helpful if you read the article regardless of which Kirk side you are.

Viral Claims About Charlie Kirk’s Words – FactCheck.org

There also are other fact checking sites on the internet you might want to look at.

At the end of this long list, we will present some compelling thoughts of former Vice President Mike Pence who put the focus on these days after the assassination more on where it should be.

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If you believe in something, you need to have the courage to fight for those ideas – not run away from them or try and silence them.

We have to tell our babies to stop crying.

As government imposes the will of a few upon the many, the many begin to resist. Ultimately, it becomes necessary for the government to use force to make the people conform.

When you deliberately distort and selectively present the truth, you lie.

I’m urging all my millennial peers and the young people coming up behind us to look for signs and symptoms of them being in a Democrat-induced delusion. Don’t confuse the dream state of the socialists with any sort of reality. If you spot any signs of this politically terminal affliction within yourself, please seek help.

One of the most horrifying and surprising evolutions we have witnessed among our widespread campus network is the rapid movement away from tolerating opposing ideas and respectful debate to the deployment of obscene bully tactics from the left.

The truth is that while those on the left – particularly the far left – claim to be tolerant and welcoming of diversity, in reality many are quite intolerant of anyone not embracing their radical views.

Many textbooks fail to present students with both sides of an issue. Students are being pushed toward an education that demonizes free enterprise while advocating top-down government, deficit spending and class warfare.

I started a college campus-based nonprofit in June 2012 called Turning Point U.S.A. to target millennials in college. Our mission was to create a powerful conservative grassroots activist network on campuses and identify, educate, train and organize students to promote the principles of freedom, free markets and limited government.

Political correctness is the deadliest of political weaponry.

Liberal-socialist women generalize about women as if they are some sort of monolithic voting block of disenfranchised, victimized citizens.

For anyone who can only handle about 12-minutes-per-day of anything news related before needing to retreat into isolation, allow me to recommend spending those 12 minutes listening to the opening monologue of ‘The Rush Limbaugh Show.’

The Democrats want a pathway to citizenship for the illegal immigrants so they can become Democratic voters in a few years – and some Democrats even argue that non-citizens ought to be able to vote in U.S. elections.

You can’t watch Fox News without seeing five or six segments a day about the nuttiness on college campuses.

Liberals like to say there aren’t any limitations on speech, and it’s true that they can say or do just about anything. But conservatives apparently can’t even stand still while wearing a MAGA hat without crossing a line.

Say what you will about President Trump’s tone, tactics or tweeting, but even his most strident critics admit he’s at his best when on the offensive.

Conservatives are branded bigots and we are falsely accused of hate speech when we express traditional values and ideas that have made America the greatest country on Earth.

This silent majority are the Americans who love God, their family, and our amazing country. They don’t want their morals, their job, or their lifestyle threatened by the government or any candidates.

Cultural Marxism that has permeated all of Europe and has been the driving force that has brought France – the nation of Liberty, Fraternity and Equality – to the brink.

President Trump identifies the hatred and intolerance expressed by his radical opponents and names it for what it is.

I believe we’re broken by sin upon birth.

If there’s one thing Democrats are good at, it’s killing American jobs.

The perverse gift of the Chinese coronavirus is that it has given Americans an up close and personal look at the horrors of big government – and, by extension, socialism.

When students have access to low-interest loans and government aid, colleges have no incentive to cut costs. Why should a college lower tuition if more students are able to pay with subsidized loans from the government?

If you take away what a person owns, you control what that person can do.

It is part of our human nature to want to be liked. It is part of our human nature to worry about what others think of us. It is an attribute of greatness and of American exceptionalism to not surrender to our nature, but to be guided by an inner calling to persevere and to prevail, no matter the personal cost.

Democrats have long been the party of voter fraud.

Nothing in socialist doctrine argues for the abuse of power, from Thomas More, to Karl Marx, to Chavez, to Ocasio-Cortez. Historically, however, it has been the case that socialist countries often end up violently suppressing their citizens.

How can it possibly be that so many Americans are rallying to support Ocasio-Cortez, when all they need to do is look at Venezuela to see where she is leading them?

We have been indoctrinated to see the world through a politically correct lens.

There are young conservatives out there, and there have been for decades.

Many migrants awaiting asylum hearings in the U.S. never show up for their court dates. And the longer they stay in the U.S., the more sympathy they draw in the media and from many compassionate Americans.

Too often, teachers and professors misrepresent conservative viewpoints, and intentionally muddle what it means to be a conservative.

Whenever there has been a debate on the national stage, nobody has had to go looking to find me. I’ve been there. Always making the argument for free markets, first principles, and limited government.

It is extremely difficult to stand up for principles when many of your friends are automatically liberal or just do not care.

Trump is the first president in a generation who is willing to take political risks to secure our border.

In addition to making sense and serving the needs of justice, rehabilitating prisoners and releasing them when they are ready can save taxpayers money.

Tiger Woods experienced perhaps the greatest fall from grace of any celebrity in American history.

Entrepreneurs take measured risks, not hopeless gambles.

America’s young people deserve more than a mediocre future – and we now have demonstrated proof that President Trump is building a path for our success.

The United States has been turned into a mindless true-false test, instead of the complex essay exam, it should be. You are either for open borders, or you are racist and anti-immigration. It just doesn’t work that way.

There is no question that automation is – and has been since the start of the Industrial Revolution – displacing workers and creating disruption within the economy and labor market.

Young people in college – many living away from their parents for the first time in their lives – are particularly vulnerable to the leftist propaganda campaign designed to turn them away from supporting President Trump and turning them away from believing in American exceptionalism.

In politics as in sports, the best defense is a good offense.

Since the end of WWII, France’s steady movement away from Western ideas of individual liberty and self-determination – and toward collectivist action and conformance – has created a people overly dependent on government, hobbled by crippling taxes and lacking in individual initiative.

We’ve been conditioned to see a video of white people in MAGA hats standing in front of a Native American and assume that the white people are racists.

For years, elites in both political parties have ignored the illegal immigration crisis growing on America’s southern border.

The left has viewed the coronavirus pandemic as a political ‘opportunity’ from the start.

I know many young conservatives all across the country that are isolated and ostracized due to their beliefs. They are portrayed as bigots, misogynists and ignorant just because they are conservative.

A healthy economy is a foundation for a healthy future.

Yes, America is a nation of immigrants – but the immigrants have to enter legally.

Yes, college tuition is a problem for many young Americans, but it is a problem exacerbated by government subsidies and an overwhelming demand to get a college degree, despite high dropout rates.

I have been advocating in favor of free markets and against socialism since I was a teenager.

The case for socialism is always made based on an ideal and a promise. The ideal is that humans can lovingly coexist in a sharing and peaceful way. The promise is that this time, unlike failed attempts elsewhere, socialism will be implemented properly, and no citizen will suffer as a result.

The real reason Democrats are pushing for universal mail-in balloting has nothing to do with the global pandemic which originated in China; they simply believe it will help them win elections.

We have to teach goodness to our infants.

We live in a welfare state society – one that is already bloated and overburdened. We cannot continue to absorb and support an endless stream of people who will inevitably need legal residents to subsidize their lives.

Conservatives by and large believe in the corrective power of the free market above all. If we don’t like how private companies are doing business, we should just start our own to compete, right?

Once we lose our border protection, the road to citizenship, voting and welfare benefits for a flood of new immigrants will be all but paved.

I founded Turning Point U.S.A. to take the fight for ideological diversity directly to a progressive stronghold: the nation’s leading colleges and universities.

We must also be real. We must be honest with the population. Having an armed citizenry comes with a price, and that is part of liberty… We need to be very clear that you’re not going to get gun deaths to zero. It will not happen. But I think it’s worth it. I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year, so that we can have the Second Amendment,

I can’t stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up, new age term that does a lot of damage.

Black women do not have brain processing power to be taken seriously. You have to go steal a white person’s slot.

This is something that I hope will make Taylor Swift more conservative: Engage in reality more… Reject feminism. Submit to your husband, Taylor. You’re not in charge.

Gun control, like vaccines and masks, is focused on making people feel ‘safe’ by taking freedoms away from others. Don’t fall for it.

Now, I will say that for future retirees, people under the age of 45, we should absolutely raise the retirement age. I’m going to say something very provocative. I’m not a fan of retirement. I don’t think retirement is biblical. You say, ‘Charlie, I’m just gonna retire and I’m just gonna go golf.’ I think, what a waste of the gifts that God has given you.

I have a very, very radical view on this, but I can defend it, and I’ve thought about it. We made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act in the mid-1960s.

MLK was awful. He’s not a good person. He said one good thing he actually didn’t believe.

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Former Vice President Mike Pence, who had watched some of the angry words spoken in the wake of Kirk’s death, suggested we develop or keep a proper perspective on what had happened and what we should do and be next:

“I truly do pray for his family, commend law enforcement in the community. But you understand the anger in this moment? It’s understandable, but I think we’ve got to be careful about putting America on trial whenever we see evil overtake the hearts of any individual, and in this case, absent additional facts, it was one person responsible for Charlie Kirk’s assassination. He needs to be brought to justice, swift and certain.

“Can people in public life do better in the way that we speak with one another and about the issues facing the country? Of course, and democracy depends on heavy doses of civility. But Charlie Kirk was a champion of the First Amendment, a champion of free and open debate. He ultimately died defending it, and I think on that principle we should stand and ensure that it’s part of his legacy beyond one.”

—Regardless of whether we agree with what Charlie Kirk said, we must remember that he had a right to say what he said, just as critics have a right to express themselves. And all of us should oppose any efforts to end or limit that freedom.

A death might still the voice of one person but we cannot allow it to mute the voices of all of us.

Sellout

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The Missouri General Assembly has sold out the people of Missouri and more than two centuries of our heritage in following President Trump’s dictate on congressional elections.

The quick obedience of our legislature came less than a month after Trump issued a wholly unconstitutional rant on his social media page on August 18—

Remember, the States are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes. They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY, to do.

While we might have had other presidents who THOUGHT that, only Donald Trump has said so clearly and unmistakably that he is a dictator, the Congress, the Courts, and the Constitution be damned. He, he claims, can order states to do his bidding.

It is nothing short of a political tragedy that our Governor and our Missouri General Assembly have so unabashedly acknowledged that he is what he says he is and they will take orders from him, to the detriment of their constituents.

The legislative journals will be testimony for decades to come how completely the people from our home towns that we chose to represent us have sold out to a president who respects no bounds, including those of the United States Constitution, as well as forfeiting the rights of independence asserted by our State Constitutions for more than two centuries.

To be clear: What Trump and our legislature have done is NOT for the good of our country or our state. Their actions are an abdication by the majority of their oath of office to defend the Constitutions of the United States and the State of Missouri:

“I do solemnly swear, or affirm, that I will support the Constitution of the United States and of the state of Missouri, and faithfully perform the duties of my office……”

The attitude by legislators who have endorsed the Trump congressional district map raises serious questions whether the people in the House and the Senate that we elected to serve and to protect US have “faithfully performed” the duties of their office—which do not include following the dictates of a President of the United States who demands service only for the good of Donald J. Trump, a man either ignorant of the Constitution HE swore to uphold or who flagrantly ignores Section Four, which reserves the power to the states to regulate elections and the counting of votes and they in no way must do what the President tells them to do.

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of choosing Senators.

The loophole in the language, however, does allow the legislature to carry out a President’s wishes and there’s nothing to stop a power-hungry President from telling the legislature to do his bidding and the majority of the legislative members can rationalize reasons for doing so—which they have done although the legislature is under no legal obligation to do so.

The legislature also has ignored the wording of every Missouri Constitution in the 204-year history of our state by agreeing Missouri, and other states “are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes.”

States are not agents. They are independent subdivisions and Missouri has repeatedly claimed that distinction. Article Ten of the Bill of Rights, often cited—especially by Republicans—establishes that:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Missouri has always firmly claimed those powers, beginning with our first constitution.

1820: “We, the people of Missouri, inhabiting the limits hereinafter designated, by our representatives in convention assembled, at St. Louis, on Monday the 12th day of June, 1820, do mutually agree to form and establish a free and independent republic, by the name of ‘the State of Missouri;’ and for the government thereof, do ordain and establish this constitution.”

1865: Article 1, Section 5: That the people of this state have the inherent, sole, and exclusive right of regulating the internal government and police thereof, and of altering and abolishing their Constitution and form of government, whenever it may be necessary to their safety and happiness; but every such right should be exercised in pursuance of law, and consistently with the Constitution of the United States.

1875:  BILL OF RIGHTS. In order to assert our rights, acknowledge our duties, and proclaim the principles on which our government is founded, we declare-.

Section 1. Political power, origin of. —That all political power is vested in and derived from the people; that all government of right originates from the people, is founded upon their will only, and is instituted solely for the good of the whole. [Same as Const. 1865, Art. 1, Sec. 4.]

Sec. 2. Internal affairs, regulation of. —That the people of this State have the inherent, sole and exclusive right to regulate the internal government and police thereof, and to alter and abolish their Constitution and form of government whenever they may deem it necessary to their safety and happiness : Provided, Such change be not repugnant to the Constitution of the United States.  (same, in substance, as language from 1865 Constitution)

1945 Constitution: Bill of Rights:

Section 4. Independence of Missouri—submission of certain amendments to Constitution of the United States.—That Missouri is a free and independent state, subject only to the Constitution of the United States; that all proposed amendments to the Constitution of the United States qualifying or affecting the individual liberties of the people or which in any wise may impair the right of local self-government belonging to the people of this state, should be submitted to conventions of the people.

Free and Independent state?  Not anymore.  Not as long as a President can say “jump” and the Missouri legislature leaps.

How high would it leap?  Senator Lincoln Hough of Springfield is the answer. Hough has been a trusted figure among the Republican super majority. You don’t get much more trusted than by being put in charge of the committee that decided what gets how much of a $50 billion budget.

He and Senator Mike Moon of Ash Grove  voted against both the petition proposal and against Trump’s gerrymandered map.

Hough has told The Missouri Independent that Senate leader Cindy O’Laughlin within minutes of the vote removed him as the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee because he defied orders to vote for the petition and redistricting bills.

Hough told The Independent, “She said, ‘​w​e are tired of fighting with you.’  To which my response was, ‘did you fight with me this week, or did I just go out here and vote no on something that was handed down to the Missouri Senate and a bunch of elected members who are not allowed to talk?’”

“What I’ve seen at the end of last session, and what I saw this week, is a dismantling of what the Senate is supposed to be.”

The Senate as an institution nationally and in this state has always—until now—held itself to be the careful, deliberative chamber that allowed all voices to be heard, even if those voices tried to defeat or  modify legislation.  What happened in that chamber last week ended that important role in which one chamber of the Congress or of the legislature cooly evaluates the value and the honesty of legislation.

The Senate leadership, not even pretending to honor that tradition and that role in the system of government checks and balances that our nation’s creators gave us, destroyed that tradition. It twice voted to silence opposing voices and go straight to a vote, the outcome of which was guaranteed even with the two GOP defectors (Republicans control 2/3 of the seats in both chambers).

O’Laughlin several days ago fell back on the questionable excuse that the bills should be rammed through the special session to protect “Christian conservative values.” We are still waiting for her definition of them.

Whether the government should force Christian views—-or the perceived views of politicians who consider themselves Christians—on others seems clearly violative of the First Amendment’s establishment clause.

The Pew Research Center recently released its survey on religion in Missouri, showing 62% of Missourians identify themselves as Protestant Christians. Catholic Christians represent 14%.  Historically Black Protestants make up five percent. Four percent of adults identify with other religions—Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindus and other world religions.

One-third of the responding adults say they are “nones,” religiously-unaffiliated. Five percent are atheists and eight percent are agnostic. “Nothing in particular” adds up to 20%.

If our legislature was interested in a representative congressional map, especially one based on those “Christian Conservative Values,” the map would be 5-3 Republican based on the perentages in the Pew study. Instead, it has caved to political greed and created a 7-1 map that does away with the only ordained Christian in our delegation and one of only of two active Christian ministers in the U.S. House of Representatives. Then it punished one of the caucus’s own members for taking a principled stand while the rest of his party colleagues sold out.

Whether it is a matter of religion or just raw politics, the Senate by its actions, got far under the covers with our President, and—in effect—endorsed his great desire to be a dictator.

Ultimately, these actions will reach the federal courts. Sadly, we no longer have confidence that the ultimate federal court will find our legislature’s bowing to a President seeking total power is far out of Constitutional bounds.

Some of the protestors at the Capitol when the House voted pointed to the state motto, “Let the welfare of the people be the supreme law.”  Pretty clearly, the legislature has chosen the welfare of Donald Trump as its priority.

You and I have been sold out by those closest to us that we trust to defend our freedoms from a President who wants to become a tyrant.

Remember those who have done this to us. Remember it next year when they ask for your vote.

We do still have the right to vote for our legislators.

For now.

A REALLY Special Session

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Our lawmakers are back in Jefferson City to help decide what kind of a country we will have, and what kind of country we will be. That’s a pretty strong observation. But if we are honest, it is also pretty strongly true.

Governor Kehoe has called them back because President Trump worries he won’t have continued absolute power for the last half of his term unless legislatures in various states take unprecedented action to change congressional district lines to eliminate Democrats.

Forget what the voters decided in the 2024 Congressional elections. Make sure some of them can’t have the representative they elected because a President who brags about his popularity is worried that, in truth, he is so unpopular in poll after poll that Americans might vote in 2026 to impede his seizure of absolute power.

The Missouri legislature wants to take Representative Emanuel Cleaver’s elected job away from him by splitting his district so about half of his biggest supporters can’t vote for him in 2026.

It is interesting that Republicans, who have so many chest-thumping evangelical Christians supporting them, want to eliminate a member of Congress who is a Christian minister. Perhaps Emanuel Cleaver isn’t Christian enough. Perhaps they think he is spiritually lost or spiritually bankrupt because he’s a Methodist, a mainline Christian group that has split in a dispute about whether God creates gays.

Wouldn’t you think that a president who peddles Bibles, poses holding a Bible in front of a D. C. church, and says in commercials that he has several Bibles and it’s his favorite book would want someone like Congressman Cleaver in Washington as a moral force?

That’s Trump’s problem. He is not a moral force himself. In fact, there are plenty who wonder if he has any morals at all.

Donald Trump, who is so scared of losing power that he will disrupt the entire system of picking a representative government, wants the legislature to just turn over the keys to the democratic process in Missouri to him.

He talks about American exceptionalism but cares not for the government system that gives us that distinction and he will do anything to make sure his power goes unchecked for as long as he and his political offspring can keep it.

Have the people of Missouri asked for this change in who represents them?

No.  There has been no public outcry that our congressional delegation has betrayed the people who elected it. But those we have chosen to represent us at the state level are facing a demand that the legislature go against its own public’s wishes so Missouri can help keep a man in power who day after day advances policies that are antithetical to a heritage that millions have lived and died to defend and to perfect.

Now we have the spectacle of our chosen state representatives and our chosen state senators meeting to undermine our representatives in the national government that we voted to support less than one year ago, and in the process throw out a Black Methodist minister who has served our state with great honor and decency in Washington since January 3, 2005, a man dedicated to public service in the pulpit as well as in the places of power—a dozen years on the city council in our largest city, eight years as its mayor, and more than two decades representing Christian values and his district’s needs.

He rightfully threatens to fight this ill-conceived realignment in court: “It will render people in Kansas City essentially silent and powerless,” Cleaver said. “The reason I’m saying this is Kansas City is roughly 70-something percent Democratic. If you tear Kansas City apart — put one portion of the Kansas City area in one district, the other in another — the chances are they have no representation.”

He is correct although today’s majority party does not seem to care.

What hammer does Donald Trump hold over our lawmakers that makes them so craven in doing his bidding? It’s a big one. It’s the power to withhold or even take back the billions of dollars in federal funding that underwrite about half of the state budget.

It is awfully hard to look down the barrel of that gun and not wilt. Trump wants no defiance from Missouri and from other Republican states. He and those who are pulling his strings daily prove they care not one whit for most of us but expects our voices in government at state and federal levels to say only two words: “Yes, sir.”

Some key questions emerge: Is there time to make all of this happen?  Can opponents drag out the special session before the bill passes and the court battles begin and how long will that process take before it clears state courts and goes through the federal court system, which will take even more time?

When will filing for these offices begin if this issue is tied up in courts?  Candidates cannot file in districts that will not legally exist until the courts rule which map will be THE map. When will primary elections be held, ditto? When will lawsuits challenging the results begin and be processed? Will the court fights be  done  before time for a November election?

This is going to be a long and ugly process that will do nothing to improves public confidence in Missouri’s, and the nation’s, government.

One man wants to take away one of our members of Congress with a new map THAT IS UNLIKELY TO BE PUT OUT FOR VOTER APROVAL before an election is held specifically to oust a congressman who has been elected eleven times by people in a district that Trump wants the Missouri legislature to destroy.

Here is the final question:

How much does the Missouri General Assembly want to disgrace itself for a man who has been considered by almost 150 of the nation’s most distinguished historians one of the worst presidents in history—-eve before he started swinging a sledgehammer in his second term.

Despite the words of a long-ago popular song, Freedom IS a word for everything to lose.

Our legislators will tell us at the end of this special session if they think it is, as the song also says, “just another word.”

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I wish I was a reporter again. God! I used to love to ask important people, “What the Hell do you think you’re doing?” although I didn’t use those words. The point of the questions was the same.  I loved those moments, as good reporters do.  It’s what we are there for, actually.

Bloomberg News has quoted the leader of the Missouri Senate saying President Trump wants our congressional districts redrawn “to be sure Missouri’s representation matches Missouri’s Christian conservative majority.”

If I were still a reporter, I would have several questions. .

What are the values of a “Christian conservative majority” that are lacking in any of our present congressional districts—or members of Congress?  Is it just a matter of Democrats serving from two of those districts?  Does the election of Democrats indicate a majority of the people in a district lack Christian values, particularly “Christian conservative” values?

Given that our two Democratic controlled districts are centered in our biggest cities, is she suggesting St. Louis and Kansas City are to some degree not Christian?

Are these congressional districts that are not conservative Christian Muslim?  Shintoists? Buddhists? Sikhs?  Atheists?  One of the Congressmen is a Methodist Minister. Is he not Christian enough?  He’s the one in the crosshairs. How about Methodists generally?  The denomination has split recently. Which side is most Christian?

How does the Trump administration reflect the Christian values of being our brother’s keeper, of being the Good Samaritans, of helping the poor, of healing the sick? How does President Trump fit into that description of Christianity?

How is ICE and its behaviors a reflection of “Christian conservative values?”

How does she square Paul’s letter to the Galatians that proclaims, “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

—Or even how well the leader of our government fits the admonition from the Old Testament Prophet Micah:

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.

It seems from here that there are shortages in the justice and mercy categories. And humility is not a word in the Bible he’s peddling.

One of the joys of being a reporter is being curious about things and having access to people who can discuss answers to that curiosity.

I was away from the Capitol for about five years after I left my life in the newsroom and when I went back to the Capitol to try to convince the legislature to do things the casino industry won’t let it do, I realized how much I missed the intellectual give-and-take of the place. A reporter’s job is to question and questions by reporters should not be automatically interpreted as hostile as often as they are, especially today when some political skin seems horribly thin.

How can we understand the religious attitudes that are dividing us if we refuse to ask or refuse to answer questions that test what we believe. And how Christian is it to claim that there is no room for different interpretations whether they are personal, denominational, social, or political?

Religion is an especially touchy subject these days when it has become a political tool or weapon. I struggle to accept those who think differing views make someone less Christian.

As I have often remarked, “Nothing screws up faith more than religion.”

I’d like to know what religion has to do with congressional redistricting.  I doubt that Donald Trump has made that one of his reasons for trying to gerrymander-rig the 2026 elections.

Apparently, six Christian districts and two heathen districts isn’t good enough.  We’ll be watching how legislators suddenly take a heathen area and with a few strokes of their genuine Donald J. Trump Sharpie, legislators will turn a heathen part of the state into a Christian one.

I’m pretty sure that is not something James Madison and his fellow creators anticipated when they wrote the Constitution. And I’m also pretty sure the court system has never ruled that congressional districts must be drawn intentionally to reflect Christian values.

I’m just an observer now. But, man oh man, there are times when I wish I could walk up to someone who thinks they’re important and ask things like this.

One Christian to another.

 

The Pious Silence

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“With gratitude and humility, we pray for President Trump. You assigned him, you appointed him, you anointed him for such a time as this. We ask You to cover him with the blood of Jesus, empowering him to advance an agenda of righteousness and justice, truth and love.

Protect him from all evil as he undergirds our nation with the firewall of our Judeo-Christian value system. Fulfill Your purpose in his life.”

—Prayer given in the oval office, March 23, 2025, by Rev. Samuel Rodriguez of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, one of several evangelical pastors who laid hands on President Trump, a repeat of a ceremony at the start of his first term. The President appeared to be earnestly participating.

Shortly after, podcaster Todd Starnes attacked those who question Trump’s Christianity and the motives of those who regard him as a national savior: “The ‘Christians’ complaining about Christians praying over President Trump in the Oval Office are not Christians.”

Last year, just before the Iowa caucuses, a television add proclaimed: “And on 14 June 1946, God looked down on his planned paradise and said: ‘I need a caretaker.’ So God gave us Trump,

“God said I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, fix this country, work all day, fight the Marxists, eat supper, then go to the Oval Office and stay past midnight at a meeting of the heads of state. So God made Trump,”

When the similar group of Christian Nationalist preachers held a laying-on of hands ceremony in 2017, the Reverend Robert Jeffress, a Texas Southern Baptist preacher, told Trump, “Mr. President, we’re going to be your most loyal friends.”

Among all the voices protesting Medicaid Cuts, using government agencies to punish opponents, indiscriminate roundups of immigrants, the dismantling of government agencies and programs helping the poor with food and medicines, and—most recently—the burning of hundreds of thousands of pounds of food that could have kept thousands of African children alive, where are these preachers?

The silence of these pious ministers is thunderous.

Is THIS a President whose words and actions show he wants “to advance an agenda of righteousness and justice, truth and love?”

Is this President—who has jerked everybody around on the Epstein matter, who has deported people to nations far away from their own, who reportedly is jamming people into Florida cages, and who has cut Medicaid payments—undergirding the nation “with the firewall of our Judeo-Christian value system?”

Is he fulfilling God’s purpose?

Let’s hear it, preachers.  Tell us, God, that what we are seeing and getting—of which we have only scratched the surface in the lists above—fulfilling your purpose?

Tell us, most loyal friends, why you aren’t saying anything about all of this?  Do you believe a loving God is rooting for Trump to do all of the mean, cruel, unfeeling, un-loving things to others?

Can you watch what has happened since you prayed for him and still believe God “assigned him…appointed him (and) anointed him for such a time as this?”

Do you really believe his acts and statements truly represent our Judeo-Christian value system? Was Jesus a lying bully?

Is not Donald Trump exposing the falseness of the proclamations of pious faith leaders such as yourselves?

And what is it you have faith in?

Who’s not a Christian, Mr. Starnes—those who seek to serve others or those who seek power to serve themselves?

A lot of us are praying these days but not for Trump; for our country.

I lost a good friend this week, a gentle man who celebrated sixty years in the ministry just a few weeks ago with what became his last sermon. The Reverend John Bennett dedicated his life to social justice and told an interviewer a few years ago, “My guideposts as I move forward in my life and ministry are Micah, Chapter 6, verse 8.  ‘Do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God,’ which is to walk in solidarity with all who hurt.”

And how did he hope others would remember him?

“He was a gentle and passionate man, on fire for social justice, rooted in his deep faith.”

I will take one John Bennett for 500 of those who would lay hands on Donald Trump.

(photo credit–Facebook)

Notes from a Quiet Hill 

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—-stuff we can’t resist commenting on but don’t want to spend time writing more about.

As we were about to file this piece last night, the New York Times reported that this country’s largest Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptists, had overwhelmingly voted to try to get the Supreme Court to overturn its ruling approving same-sex marriage.

I am a Protestant. And as is the case with the Southern Baptists, I consider myself a Christian. But I struggle to understand how those who also call themselves Christians can then dictate who other people can love, how they can love, and whether some are not permitted to love at all.

After all, love is at the core of Christianity.

Protestants and Catholics alike like to quote First Corinthians 13:13: “Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.” (New Living Translation,)

We are free to practice our religion however we wish in this country, even if it seems inconsistent with the great Love chapter of the Inspired Word. I think my faith (which is different from religion) is more in line with Paul’s letter to the Christians at Corinth.

Okay—-now that the heavy stuff is out of the way:

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If I was a reporter covering the White House, there are two words that I would say almost all the time when I’m talking to today’s President or other politicians, but especially the President whose statements are from here to Mars away from the truth:

“Prove It.”

He wouldn’t. But he’d call me “nasty” for suggesting something he has no interest in doing.

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Wonder what’s going to happen to the Tesla that President Trump bought from Elon Musk while they were still best buds.

Tell ya what I’m gonna do.  If there are any who view these entries who has the fevered ear of our president, tell him that I’ll give him $2,500 for it. I’ll even fly to Washington on my own dime and drive it back to Missouri, stopping for a relaxing recharge every 375 miles or so. I would like for him to sign it somewhere that won’t get lost in a rainstorm and to have it fully charged when I pick it up.

That’s my top offer. I could lower  the price it if the President thinks my offer is too high for showing his new disdain for Elon.  And I won’t object if he’d just give it to me.

If any of you have any connections that can accomplish this deal, let them know of this kind offer.

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We like Andy Borowitz, a satiric columnist and a serious observer of things.  He recently reported, tongue in cheek, that the President of Mexico—exercising the beyond-boundaries prerogatives our President thinks the world should honor—has exercised her own beyond-boundaries prerogative. She has renamed our Liberty Bell.

TACO Bell.

As in, “Trump Always Chickens Out” after his big tariff announcements.

Mr. Trump is real touchy on a lot of things and this one really is sand in his underwear. All the more reason to say it.  But I won’t remind him of that when I pick up the Tesla

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Missouri has an artists and athletes tax that requires the state income tax be deducted from payments made for concerts and professional sports event participants..  When the Cubs play in St. Louis, the players’ daily pay during the series is subject to the income tax.

I suggested to the House Ways and Means Committee earlier this year that we need to similarly tax highly-paid college athletes for their Name, Image, and Likeness incomes. They’re not amateurs anymore, nor are they student-athletes. We have athlete-students with the emphasis on the first word. You can’t have million-dollar amateurs.

Plus, the experience would be a good introduction to the real world of income taxes for these players.

The New Pope

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I remember as a young boy in downstate Illinois watching The Chicago Cardinals play their NFL games with Red Grange describing the action from the broadcast booth.

Finally, after all this time, we have a Chicago Cardinal as the head of the Roman Catholic Church.

The Chicago Cardinals later moved to St. Louis and became the St. Louis (Football) Cardinals.

It turns out that the new Pope did the same thing.  The football team lasted longer in St. Louis than he did. Today, they’re in Arizona. The man known to friends in St. Louis as Bob Prevost has moved to Vatican City, the world’s smallest nation.

We watched his speech, given in—I think—at least three languages, none of them English. Or French, of which I have a certain familiarity since I passed three of four semesters of it.

I was reminded of a story I once heard about professional baseball players who went out to battle areas during World War II to entertain the troops. We’re most familiar with stories of entertainers who did USO shows, but baseball players who were ineligible for the draft volunteered to cheer up the troops and would go out, about four at a time, and visit areas that were (mostly) recently cleared of the enemy.

One such troupe was made up of former Gashouse Gang shortstop Leo Durocher, then the manager of the Dodgers, Nick Etten who led the American League in 1944 in home runs and walks as a first baseman with the Yankees, New York sportswriter Tom Meany, and Joe “Ducky” Medwick, also a former Gashouse Gang guy but who was by then a member of the New York Giants.

They did at least four shows a day in Italy at a time when the Allies were taking the country town by town. Meany would be the emcee. A 22-minute film of the 1944 World Series (St. Louis vs. St. Louis with all six games in Sportsman’s Park) and then the three players would talk. There would be a true-false quiz show with the winners getting autographed baseballs, and then the guys would stick around for autographs and talks with the soldiers.

Eventually their tour took them to Rome where Medwick and Durocher got to meet Pope Pius XII. Durocher asked the Pope to bless his rosary, which he did. And then the Pope turned to Medwick and asked him about his background.  And Medwick supposedly answered:

“Your Holiness, I’m Joseph Medwick. I, too, used to be a Cardinal.”

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Three members of the 133-member Conclave also have ties to the St. Louis area. Wilson Gregory of Washington D. C. was the Archbishop of Belleville Illinois, and in 2020 became the first African-American Cardinal in 2020. Raymond Burke was the Archbishop in St. Louis, 2004-08 and became a Cardinal in 2010. Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, who became a Cardinal in 2012 was the Auxiliary Bishop in St. Louis 2001-02.

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In 1977, fresh Villanova University graduate Robert Prevost (the picture is from the 1977 college yearbook) joined the Augustinian order and went to the Compton Heights neighborhood of St. Louis and became took his first step in the priesthood as a novice at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church. He took his first vows a year later and four years after that, he took his final vows.

The Post-Dispatch interviewed St. Louis Zoo employee Steve Baker, a friend from those early days. “Never in my life did I think that someone that I knew was going to be the pope,” he told the PD. “I mean, I sat at a kitchen table and drank coffee with this man…This guy was a rock star. You cold tell even then he was destined to be great.”

Now, however, comes a critical question: Can the new Pope, a Chicago native, be a Cubs fan?

Breath a sigh of relief St. Louis Cardinals fans.  He’s a White Sox guy.

Whew!

The mental image of Pope Leo XIV leading the crowd in “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” at Wrigley Field would have been impossible to take.

(If you want a much better telling of the Medwick and the Pope story, go to Ducky and The Lip in Italy – Society for American Baseball Research)