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  • Death to the freedom of the press

    In journalism school, we were taught about the history of the press and how truly patriotic it was to be a part of the historic institution of the press.

    They made sure we knew how sacred sources were and that the media, more than any other industry, would hold thebkeys to informing the public of what is happening in government.

    In the beginning, people saw the press as the watch dog, which would guard the public interest and expose wrongdoing through great investigative journalism.

    James and Ben Franklin championed this idea in colonial America and even went to jail over their writing content. According to google: “the Franklin brothers’ actions and writings set the stage for a greater understanding and appreciation of the importance of freedom of the press. Benjamin Franklin’s contributions to the printing and publishing industry, as well as his writings and political activities, helped shape the development of a free and informed citizenry.”

    Ben Franklin said, “Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government.” He would also argue that without freedom of speech and press, the constitution dissolves.

    Fast forward to 2025, and with the second term of Donald Trump, we see the deterioration of the free press. Covering the White House without being able to question anything is a problem. The days of journalists going to jail for their beliefs are over. The Republicans are just as afraid of Trump and won’t say anything about it, and the Democrats only get involved if it causes mass protests.

    For example, there should be mass protests for Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who is the Maryland man deported to El Salvador without due process. No mass protests, so no objections from Democrats.

    On May 25, 2020, George Floyd was murdered by police in Minneapolis, and the world protested, and the Dems jumped right on the bandwagon. As of today, most of the reform gains we saw in the aftermath of Floyd’s murder have been squashed by the Trump administration. Again, no protest equals silence from the Dems.

    With the influence of the press being gutted, the Trump Administration can do whatever they want while we watch. We can now lay to rest our press.

  • Attacks on freedom for all people sour July 4th celebrations

    America has made great strides in its  history in an attempt to live up to its constitution. No one can argue that things are better than they were 100 years ago.

    But did this change come from a new revelation that the only God who created the universe made all men equal and that the past treatment of minorities was sinful and would greatly hinder eternal life in heaven? Nope. It doesn’t seem like God has ever stopped the sinful flesh at anything it decides to do.

    So then, white people were free from immediate eternal punishment and could still rob, cheat, and steal from minorities. They could still allow racist systems that would impede the process of minorities moving forward, and they could continue to allow police and other forces to discriminate and incarcerate minorities without real due process.

    And they have.

    What has been a constant with white people is that when you lay their actions before (a tactic mastered by the civil rights movement), then it would guilt enough of them to do the right thing.

    The problem with this is that they do the right thing for the wrong reason. And that leads to resentment.

    Then comes Donald Trump. In his first term in office, he attempted to resend as much civil and human rights as whites would allow. Now, of course, you’re thinking white people wouldn’t allow America to go backward, would it?

    There are too many non-racist folks in Congress to let that happen, right? Well, I looked up exactly how many things he did to destroy civil and human rights, and I wanted to list them all here. I didn’t because there were too many. On average, it looked like at least 70 things each year he was in office.

    I couldn’t believe it myself because you would think that if the democrats knew this, they would have run on a platform that shared it with the rest of us. Could it be that they were resentful, too?

    This link will take you to the list of things he tried https://civilrights.org/trump-rollbacks/

    All of them didn’t succeed, but with this gigantic list, you can really tell that the powers that be are not for minorities. He is already on pace to surpass this list in his second term.

    And now, with Independence Day fast approaching, who really wants to celebrate it?

  • How do you feel now?

    This post makes the first of 5 posts that will be written this year covering American history to see how you feel about the incident today. I will briefly discuss the feelings of the day, and then you, dear reader, can comment on how you would feel if it happened today.

    So, on June 20, 1967, Muhammad Ali refused to be inducted into the Army and was convicted of draft evasion, sentenced to five years in prison, and fined $10,000 and banned from boxing for three years.

    Ali had a religious conviction. It should have been the same religious conviction that everyone in a Christian society should take. But America has always had a duality with good and evil depending on the circumstance and who is likely to benefit.

    Ali said: “My conscience won’t let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people, or some poor hungry people in the mud for big powerful America. And shoot them for what? They never called me nigger, they never lynched me, they didn’t put no dogs on me, they didn’t rob me of my nationality, rape and kill my mother and father. … Shoot them for what? How can I shoot them poor people? Just take me to jail.”

    These statements cut deep to some in America who thought Ali was being un-American for making those statements. At face value, he was expressing the great divide that has always been in America between people of color and white people.

    The issues Ali brought out were not things America wanted to deal with or discuss, and definitely not publicly. It was the type of truth that had no rebuttal, only shame, denial, and blame.

    As a result, the powers that be wanted to punish Ali, so in the prime of his boxing career, they wouldn’t let him earn a living boxing. A few years later, the conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court.

    So, what are your thoughts on Ali. Should he have gone to Vietnam and fought in the war? Should he have gone to jail? Should he have been reprimanded for the things he said about America? To some people, the answer is “yes” to all three questions. What say ye?

  • Do you know God as your father in heaven?

    In the Old Testament, Israel never knew God the creator as their father in heaven. In fact, nobody did until Jesus came on the scene, and when teaching his disciples to pray, he was the first to call God our father in heaven (Luke 11:1-6).

    Knowing God as our father in heaven means that we understand him as a loving, caring, interpersonal God who is the head of a larger family.

    Through trust, understanding, and intimacy, we as his children have our needs and wants provided by a loving God.

    Our God loves us unconditionally, and seeing the undone condition we are in with the inability to save ourselves, he came near to make us whole. We were not given a set of rules and regulations or a system that was against us like Moses’ law. Instead, we were given grace and mercy, and reconciliation was afforded us.

    Now, the way that we know our father in heaven should imitate the relationship we have with our children. They will learn everything they need to know about God in their younger years by how their earthly father has sustained them.

    We just celebrated Father’s Day yesterday, and many dads were celebrated for being a dad. But the hope is that each man who has fathered a child has reassured that child the same unconditional love, care, and nurturing that comes from our father in heaven.

  • America struggles with its plurality of morals

    We are halfway through 2025, and as we slide into summer, there will be more daylight and  more opportunities to interact with others.

    This used to be considered a good thing because it would strengthen our community ties and further develop our societal  norms. As a country, we need this more now than any other time because we are completely divided in our morals and values.

    There are several factors in developing our morality. How you were raised by your parents, peer interaction, role models, and the media help to sync our morality.

    Years ago, parents disciplined their children. Spare the rod, spoil the child was the biblical saying that made discipline important. The standard in America was to work hard for what you want. We saw our parents do it and we took our turn as we became adults.

    I was fortunate to have 4 siblings at home, and I had an older brother who went to college, and I followed his steps. I may not have gone to college if he didn’t go.

    I grew up with role models or heroes that I tried to imitate. There was a clear difference between good and evil, and the majority of the kids wanted to be the good guys!

    Then, of course, there is the media and social media where you can see and hear literally anything. The media has helped to desensitize us and blur the lines between good and evil. When Luigi Magione was arrested for allegedly shooting an insurance agency CEO in the back on a New York City Street, he was praised by many and seen as a hero. Forty years ago, there would have been gun protests, ridicule of his family, and no one in the 80s would have celebrated this shooter.

    So here is the point, in years past, people were just as selfish, greedy, corrupt, and immoral as they are today. But inside of us was a governor that would make us ashamed to be associated with such filth. Today, we can openly present opposing views to our societal norms, and it’s just OK.

    There is now a new definition of what it means to be free in America. We are now free to act a damn fool without shame, be racist, a pedophile, a junkie, or a drunk and my favorite — we can be as ignorant as we want to and that’s just fine.

    At this rate, the destruction of America is not an “if”, it’s “when.”

  • So what’s with the Pope?

    On May 8, 2025, Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost of the United States became the 267th pope for more than 1.4 billion Catholics worldwide.

    These are exciting times for Catholics as some would still be mourning the death of the previous pope. But the fact that a new pope was selected so fast has to be comforting.

    I am not Catholic, and I often wonder how other religions interpret scripture, which leads to roles like this. Most Catholics in the know believe that Peter (yeah, the one that denied Christ and swears) was the first pope. Now they didn’t just deem him that. The scripture in Matthew 16 has been interpreted by them to give Peter “special authority” from God over the rest of the Apostles particularly in the phrase, “whatever you bound on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

    Since it was actually God who selected Peter from the rest to do this task is significant to them. The same logic applies to Mary because it is said in Luke’s gospel that God gave her favor over all other women to birth his son.

    On the outside, this seems logical because we can definitely prove that God did select Mary and Peter in these cases, and if God never selected another person for anything else, they would have a real good argument.

    However, God selected many people for special tasks and circumstances, and when you look at those selected, you do see a pattern. Simply put, God possesses this thing called for e knowledge which allows him to know things before they happen. It’s one of several things that separate him from other wannabe gods.

    Satan does not have this ability. So since God alone has this ability and with it, now we know how easily he can get his will done. Imagine being one of 100 people trapped in an enclosed pool area with the water rising 10 feet. In that moment, God knows what everyone had for breakfast, who has to use the bathroom, everyone’s credit score, and he knows all the good swimmers. And, of course, he knows all the people who will make it out of this tragedy. And he knew this information 10k years ago.

    If God had to send a message out from this crowd, he would already know who to use for that, and he would have known this more than 10k years ago.

    What’s the point? God selects people based on getting his will done. He selected Abraham because he knew what Abraham would do in the future (Gen. 18:18-19). He knew what Noah would do. He knew Esau would be profane and that Jacob, despite his flaws, would get the job done. David was God’s pick to be king as was Solomon despite David’s other sons. God selected every prophet from Moses to John the Baptist because of foreknowledge.

    Now, you probably can guess why Peter and Mary were selected, right?

    What does this mean for the Catholic Church? Nothing, they are free in this country to do what they want to do. There is a reason words like “pope” and “papacy” are not biblical words. There is a reason why Christ was raised from the death with all authority, and the scriptures never said he shared that authority with anybody.

    We should not put our trust in men — ever (Psalms 146:3). And we should always look to the almighty God for our understanding. There was never a need for many to try and start something God died for in his word. Follow Jesus!

  • The embarrassment of America’s Memorial Day

    Today typically marks the start of summer and barbecue season. Here, in the Midwest the weather is normally very nice, with fresh air and plants doing their thing.

    People are graduating, schools are preparing to dismiss for the summer break, and the majority of the time, our minds are far from war – let alone anyone who died in one.

    After WWII, America tried to prove to the world that we were the leaders of the free world and that democracy was this really great thing. We boasted about our constitution, our rule of law, our desire to be the world’s big brother, and tried to pass ourselves as the greatest ally.

    Meanwhile, back at the range, America was lying through her teeth. The wealth gap, income inequality, racism everywhere, and a lack of equal opportunity have minorities and women being treated like second-class citizens, and there needed to be several movements for change.

    We saw the Cuban missile crisis, the War in Vietnam, Operation Desert Storm, a ridiculous 10-year attack on Iraq, battles in Afghanistan, and foolishness in Gaza. All of these events helped change the view of America to nothing more than a self-absorbed bully. What’s worse is that men and women died for these causes under the impression that they were doing some great things when they weren’t.

    Then, when many service men and women came home, many failed to receive the benefits promised by the military. Now, this was no surprise to minorities because after WWII and Vietnam, many Blacks were denied the GI Bill and the stipend to assist in buying a home. And if you did get your stipend, you were “redlined” to keep you out of prospering white neighborhoods and good schools. Today, people of all colors are denied benefits, and neither political party has tried to fix it.

    So that brings us to today. How do you celebrate such a dishonest holiday? Why attempt to remember folks that you broke promises to? Until we fix this atrocity, we should not celebrate what we have done, we should be ashamed.

  • The scam of insurance

    Let’s talk insurance. We live in a time where insurance companies are denying hurricane victims, California fire victims, and auto insurance is overwhelmingly high, especially in no-fault states, and life insurance is too hard to secure.

    Families are suffering as promised benefits are denied while Congress continues to get richer from insurance lobbying. You can not expect to see the current Republican Congress do anything about this. Since 1992, Republicans have benefitted the most from insurance lobbyists receiving millions of dollars for their silence on the issues.

    Democrats have had opportunities to deal with this problem, but even when they controlled both houses of Congress, nothing got done on this front.

    The insurance industries philosophy is to find a way not to pay so the stock holders can reap their dividends. Greed has taken over morality, and the middle class and poor are suffering the most.

    Insurance was actually started as an act of benevolence in Rome and Greece in 600 AD. You can even trace the concept of insurance as far back as 4000 — 3000 bce.

    In the US, insurance had its origin in the late 17th century. Like everything else, it was on the level, and people paid faithfully their premiums and could expect to receive payment on their claims filed during that time. The complete reniging of insurance payments for qualified clients wasn’t widespread until the Reconstruction era, where former slaves were denied claims mostly because of the color of their skin.

    In his autobiography, Malcolm X tells the story of what ultimately drove his mother insane started with trying to collect on a life insurance policy for her husband. In the movie Malcolm X, his father was murdered by the KKK as they bashed his head in with a hammer and stretched his bloody body across train tracks to be destroyed. This left Malcolm, his siblings, and his mother devastated and destitute. She eventually lost her children because she could no longer take care of them because the insurance company denied her claim, stating that they believed his death to be a suicide.

    I would love to tell you that this was the only incident where this happened, but that would not be true. You see, poor Blacks during this could not afford to take the matter to court and secure a lawyer, so the insurance companies knew this and could take advantage.

    Today, billions of dollars flow through insurance companies, and they have found a way not to honor their policies. Over the years, the list of things that can deny your claims has grown tremendously, as have the payouts to Congress for their silence. In just 2024, insurance companies spent more than 117 million to Congress. In previous years the number has been higher than 150 million. They have also spent around 130 million in campaign contributions for the candidates that will ensure no legislation is passed to stop them.

    So, in the meantime, constituents suffer from natural disasters, health challenges, death, and dismemberment and other unpaid claims and the insurance machine rolls on! God bless America.

  • Convenience is killing us

    What is the cost of convenience these days? It seems like the better we are technologically, the worse off we get.

    Artificial Intelligence says the phrase “convenience is killing us” means that our constant pursuit of easy and readily available options, often in the form of processed foods, fast services, and readily accessible technology, is negatively impacting our health, environment, and overall well-being by encouraging laziness, poor dietary choices, and a lack of meaningful engagement with our surroundings; essentially, prioritizing immediate comfort over long-term health and sustainability.

    It has always been this way. For example, in the 1700s, we would have a wood-burning stove and a fireplace, and between the two, the family would be gathered together in one room to stay warm. The kids would be lying on the floor near the fireplace. Mama would be in her rocking chair knitting, and Papa would be smoking his pipe and reading to the family from the “good book,” and there would be good, stimulating discussion and togetherness.

    In 1830, a Scottish inventor created the thermostat, and with it, heat could be dispersed throughout all the rooms in the house with a controlled temperature and there was no need to gather together at the end of the day. By the 1900s, everyone was separated in their own rooms doing their own things. So much for togetherness.

    If you ask a person in their 90s about the way things were, you would discover that to them, it seems like we as a country are in one big hurry for nothing. Everything is fast and in a hurray. We want things now. No waiting! Patience is gone.

    And in our haste, we settled for less quality. In addition, we have sacrificed our health, created social isolation, lacked physical activity, created a negative environmental impact, and created mental health concerns. Is it really worth it?

  • Are we ruining Cinco De Mayo with our new immigration stance?

    Today is Cinco De Mayo, and it celebrates the day Mexico defeated the French in the battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. That day has nothing to do with Mexican independence day, which is September 16.

    We got involved in the celebration as a way to honor Mexican-American culture and heritage. It seems like with all of the snatch and grab arrests and the shipping of brown people, guilty or not, to an El Salvador prison should not be celebrated. How do we balance the difference?

    I get the idea that there are people here illegally, and perhaps they should be deported. This problem predates 1904 when the US established immigration services. It wasn’t until 1924 that the border patrol was started, and there was a serious effort to combat brown people from coming to the US.

    Never mind that there was a great migration of Europeans from 1880 to 1914 (about 650,000 per year) that were welcomed. At this time, there were only about 75 million Americans here. I don’t need to tell you that they were welcomed. Then, when brown people showed up, it was a problem.

    The idea of brown people being rapists, thieves, killers, and such was always political propaganda long before President Trump said it. The idea of losing the numerical majority has always been on the minds of Europeans because they believe in karma and that as America becomes less white, their day of reckoning is coming.

    Will there be a day when ICE agents will be used as henchmen to do the bidding of the majority race?