Elvis: Pushing the Envelope

The new Elvis Presley biopic made me think. Early in the movie, Colonel Tom Parker, played by Tom Hanks, says that the acts that made the most money were ones “that gave the audience feelings they weren’t sure they should enjoy, but they do.” Then the film focuses on the controversial gyrations that drove the girls crazy and made many people upset and uncomfortable as “The King” began his rise to stardom. Now we laugh because those dance moves that seemed so edgy in the 1950s seem so tame by today’s standards. This is not a new phenomenon.

Every generation, you hear the older people complaining that the younger generation is worse than theirs was. “Kids today,” they often grumble. The popular culture explains this by saying that old people are stuck in their ways and overly critical of the younger generation. The media may say that the younger generations are not really that rebellious or bad, because the older generation was also seen as rebellious and bad by the generation before them. Have you ever considered that maybe, instead of each generation being old, stodgy, and self-absorbed, that actually they are right? Each generation really is worse than the last, because they have to one-up the previous generation by pushing the envelope further than their parents. Yes, no generation is perfect and they all have a rebellious streak, but that does not mean that younger generations are morally equivalent to older ones. Just because Elvis shaking his hips on stage was rebellious and controversial in the 50s, that does not mean that it is morally equivalent to Cardi B singing “Wet Ass Pussy” today. Can we please bring back the innocence of generations past?

The worrisome part about this is that the envelope has already been pushed so far that it is hard to imagine what somebody can do next that will actually shock anybody. The Beatles’ long hair is certainly not controversial anymore. Drug references in lyrics that shocked people in the 60s and 70s are old news. Maybe it would take it to a higher level if someone bit the head off of a bat onstage? Nope. Ozzy Osbourne already did that in 1982. Remember when Justin Timberlake exposed Janet Jackson’s breast in front of over 100 million viewers on live television at Super Bowl XXXVIII? That was way back in 2004. I fear that celebrities will become so desperate for attention in the coming years that we will see some disgusting acts being done to gain notoriety.

Will we soon see live sex acts on stage? Will our entertainment revert back to feeding Christians to lions in front of cheering audiences? Are we going to see The Hunger Games play out in real life? We seem to be heading in that direction. The good news is that there is now another way to cause controversy and gain attention. Simply do and say good things that were once considered normal and mainstream. As the Bible says, when people rebel from God, they begin to call evil good, and good evil. It is definitely happening. Think about the things that actually are considered shocking and controversial today:

In June, five Tampa Bay Rays pitchers were attacked by the mainstream press and “woke” social media pundits for opting not to wear rainbow “Pride Night” logos on their uniforms. You do not even have to go back to my parents’ generation for when this stance would have been applauded. Now it is counter-culture.
Harry Potter author, J.K. Rowling started a firestorm of controversy when she criticized the use of the term “people who menstruate” instead of women. She also committed the unforgivable sin of tweeting her support for a woman who had been fired for saying that “men cannot change into women.” I am pretty sure that Elvis could have said that without causing a stir.
Actor Chris Pratt (Jurassic World, The Terminal List) has been disparaged as “the worst Chris in Hollywood” for his public professions of Christian faith. What a Hollywood bad boy, huh? Personally, I think being a Christian is the best way to be a rebel because it also gets you into Heaven.
If you really want to be an outcast, choose not to get what is called a Covid-19 vaccine, even though it does not prevent you from getting or spreading Covid-19. This is the most discriminated against group in America for the past couple of years (with one possible exception). They have been banned from many places, and some have even lost their jobs. They are controversial not for anything they did, but instead for not subjugating themselves to their overlords.
When it comes to controversial athletes, former baseball star Curt Schilling is near the top of the list. He was fired from ESPN in 2015 for tweeting “A man is a man regardless of what they name themselves. Male bathrooms were created with the penis in mind; female bathrooms were not. Is it now necessary to have laws to teach us otherwise? Pathetic.” To any previous generation, that comment would not only be acceptable, but obvious. Now it is a fireable offense and has even been used to keep Schilling out of the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Actress Gina Carano was famously fired from Disney’s, The Mandalorian, for taking the provocative position that she should not have to ask to be called “she,” since she is obviously a woman. Apparently, calling a boy “he,” or a girl “she,” is now edgy. Charlie Sheen had to work a lot harder than that to get fired from a hit show.
The one possible exception mentioned above as the most discriminated group in America are supporters of President Trump. The backlash that Elvis got for dancing is nothing compared to what you can expect if you say you agree with President Trump. If you support his policies that brought us a booming economy, less government interference in our lives, and four years of peace (including unprecedented peace agreements in the Middle East), you can expect to be attacked more viciously than an opposing sports star in Philadelphia.

It is terrible that these things are now controversial, but there is one positive thing about it. Entertainers want attention. In the past, they had to come up with more and more outlandish and crazy gimmicks than we had previously seen to get that attention. Now, all they have to do is espouse solid, traditional values, and wait for the media firestorm.

Again, this is not new. When reading the Bible straight through, the Old Testament prophets were the hardest parts to get through because they were so repetitive that it got boring. They were all the same thing. Israel would turn from God and pull further and further away from Him. He would warn them through prophets, and most of the time they would ignore the warnings and push His patience even more. Eventually, God said that enough was enough and allowed Israel to be defeated and the people to be scattered into exile. We are in that same spiral of self-destruction that the Israelites were in. Each generation seems to push their rebellion a little further than the last. We have had our modern-day prophets warning us to turn back to our morals and values of the past. Dennis Prager, Rush Limbaugh, William F. Buckley, and others have warned us about the decay of our values and societal norms of earlier generations. If America does not heed these warnings and keeps pushing the boundaries, we will soon run out of room to push and we will end up as Israel did.

There is one last thing I should do before I close out. To all the old people out there, I apologize for my generation. You were right.

The Underrepresented in the Covid Story

Those on the left constantly opine that white males are overrepresented in Hollywood, in business, or in any other venture they can think of. They say that we should correct that by discriminating against white males in favor of people of color and women. Apparently, Democrats think people of color and women need help because those persons are not smart enough, talented enough, or hard-working enough to succeed based on merit. Those leftists think that media attention should show a more representative sample of how America is, based entirely on percentages. However, there is a segment of society that is far more underrepresented than any group the left complains about.

I realized this injustice while I was getting my hair cut. One of our local network news broadcasts was on the television and the anchors were feigning sympathy while gloating that a Republican who had spoken out against tyrannical mandates had died of “complications from Covid.” My first thought was that “complications from Covid” generally means that the person died of something else while testing positive for Covid. My next thought was that the only reason the media is trumpeting this story is that it fits their agenda of scaring people about Covid. If they honestly cared about giving fair representation based on the actual numbers, for every story about somebody dying of Covid, there should be tens of thousands of stories about the most underrepresented group there is: People who did not die of Covid.

The media does not even acknowledge this massive group because it might inadvertently cause people to be less afraid. They love reporting that we will die if we don’t do exactly what they tell us to do, but they hate it when we don’t oblige them by dying like we were supposed to. Low death counts really frustrate the left. The huge disparity between stories of people dying from Covid and those who have not died from Covid needs to be corrected.

Since the left has trouble reconciling their need to scare people with their purported concern with proportional representation in the media, I am going to help them out. While I can name myriad people who have not died of Covid (considering all of us are in that demographic), I will stick to people many of us will recognize. Fortunately, Covid is as undeadly to celebrities as it is to us average Joes, so there are plenty of examples. Let’s get started.

Tom Hanks – The panic all started back in March of 2020 when legendary actor Tom Hanks announced that he had Covid. News reports made people contemplate what life would be like without one of the most familiar faces in the world.

Update: You might be wondering why the media would tell you about Tom Hanks’ impending death, yet didn’t even cover his funeral or people mourning at his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. What jerks, right? Well, I’m happy to inform you that Tom Hanks did not die. The media had gotten the fear they wanted from the story so it ended at the beginning.

Side note: Many of you immediately think of Forrest Gump when you picture Tom Hanks, but I still think back to Bosom Buddies, when America still knew that men dressing as women was something to laugh at. Hanks’ co-star from Bosom Buddies, Peter Scolari, actually did die this year, but did not have Covid, so it was barely mentioned in the press. They were shocked to find out that even if you don’t get Covid it’s still possible to die. In fact, the odds are right around 100%.

President Trump – In October of 2020, President Donald Trump announced that he had tested positive for Covid at the age of 74. To the chagrin of Democrats, President Trump did not die.

Bob Barker – Yes. Bob Barker is still alive! I was as surprised as you are when I looked it up.

Me – I am not a celebrity but you are reading my article, so it counts. Plus, I have been in the group of people who lived our lives fully and ignored the tyrannical rules. The panicked wimps on social media have smugly been saying for two years that we will be wiped out by Darwinism, so I know it galls them that I am still alive. Just smile at them and laugh. It drives them even more crazy.

Rudy Gobert – The first NBA player who tested positive for the coronavirus was Rudy Gobert of the Utah Jazz. You may remember that he mocked the severity of the virus by goofing around and touching all of the microphones at a press conference. He later apologized, but as it turns out, he was right. Gobert is still with us.

The cast of The Bachelor/Bachelorette from every single season – There are just so many people who have not died from Covid that it is easier to list them in groups of hundreds of people. Between the two shows there have been 44 seasons of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, with right around 1,180 contestants, and while some have died, not a single one of them has succumbed to Covid. I guess this is not the most dramatic disease ever.

The Los Angeles Dodgers – For the first time in 32 years, the Dodgers won the 2020 World Series. Their victory was not without controversy, though. During the 6th and deciding game of the series, third baseman Justin Turner was removed from the game because he had tested positive for Covid. Though he was not sick, he was told that he could not be on the field with his team who he had worked so hard with for years to win a championship. After the game, Turner came back onto the field to celebrate with teammates and take pictures with the trophy. He even took off his mask for pictures. This started a media firestorm. Leftist sportswriters and commentators were swift to call for Turner’s head. They openly questioned whether fines, suspensions, or other punishments should rain down on Turner and the Dodgers. They claimed that he had put everyone on the field in grave danger with his irresponsible behavior. Some even fretted that Turner had endangered the few thousand fans allowed in the stands at the game. We waited with anticipation to find out which Dodgers would return to defend their title in 2021 and which ones would meet their doom. A week went by. Then another. There was no word from the press on which Dodgers had died. Eventually, spring training for the next season rolled around, and the Dodgers players took the field and played baseball as if they had nothing wrong with them. Even Justin Turner himself was alive and hit 27 home runs after his death sentence. If the sportswriters really thought the players were in danger, this survival miracle should have been a huge story. Instead, there was silence, as if they knew from the beginning that it was a non-story.

All of the MLB, NFL, NBA, and NHL – The four major sports leagues in the United States bring Americans many hours of entertainment and joy. They also bring billions and billions of dollars into the economy. Between the MLB (1,026 on opening day rosters), NFL (1,696), NHL (999), and NBA (529), there are 4,250 players. Some of you might be wondering how many of these players have not died with Covid and why is the press not reporting on it? The answer is that none of these players have died with Covid and highlighting that fact might ease public fear. Despite the 100% survival rate, these leagues are still requiring testing and canceling games due to Covid. I guess they haven’t figured out the sabermetrics for Covid strategy yet.

The non-death count – I will wrap up by using a pretty staggering number. We keep hearing a highly exaggerated death count of over 800,000, which even according to the CDC, counts mostly 80-year-olds with three or four other causes of death involved. What needs to be reported is the non-death count, or how many Americans did not die of Covid to provide some perspective. That number is approximately 334,031,568 at the time of this writing. I say “at the time of this writing” because as you can see if you click the link, our population is actually growing. That may surprise some of you, since you have been led to believe that Covid is decimating our population. However, in fact there are more Americans now than in March of 2020. So, the next time you hear the media complaining about groups being underrepresented in our culture and starting hashtag campaigns like #OscarsSoWhite, think about how the survival of over 334,000,000 people is being ignored by the press. #AmericaSoPanicky

Is President Trump Our King Josiah?

As President Trump leaves the White House I have been contemplating his similarities with another great leader who challenged the status quo and “drained the swamp.” The biblical king, Josiah, was the last good king of Israel’s southern kingdom of Judah before they were defeated by the Babylonians and taken into captivity.

Both the United States and Judah had gone downhill quite a ways after some downright bad leaders who “did evil in the sight of the Lord.” Don’t get me wrong, both nations also had some good leaders, except that they failed to roll back all of the evil policies of the bad rulers. When reading through the books of Kings and Chronicles you begin to notice a pattern arise where the good kings usually had one fatal flaw mentioned. It seemed to always be described like it was here with King Jotham:

And he did what was right in the sight of the Lord; he did according to all that his father Uzziah had done. However the high places were not removed; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places. – 2 Kings 15:34-35

These high places were generally set up in Israel by the bad kings and were used for pagan worship and idolatry. Even the few kings who “did what was right in the sight of the Lord” failed to remove the high places, with two exceptions: King Hezekiah and his great-grandson King Josiah.

It made me wonder why the other good kings allowed the high places even though it was obviously wrong. Then it struck me. It’s for the same reason that our good presidents have not reversed the immoral policies of our bad presidents. They knew that many people would not like it and they lacked the political courage to follow through. There was probably a lot of political pressure by the people who worshipped and sacrificed at the high places, and even the good kings bowed to that pressure.

Kings Hezekiah and Josiah did not. They both had the backbone to stand up for what was right and removed the high places from the land. In the United States, conservatives have been frustrated because even when we elect good leaders they have lacked the courage to do what is right. Like Hezekiah and Josiah, President Trump has not. Here are some of his landmark accomplishments:

The first wicked king of Judah was Solomon’s son Reheboam. When he became king the people came to him and said, “Your father made our yoke heavy; now therefore, lighten the burdensome service of your father and his heavy yoke which he put on us, and we will serve you.” (1 Kings 12:4) In other words, regulations. The government was forcing them to do too much and interfering with their lives. Reheboam took the bad advice of his friends and responded, “My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke; my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scourges!” (1 Kings 12:14) Our bad presidents have greatly increased the bone crushing regulatory burden on the people. Our good presidents, like George W. Bush and his father, said they were for smaller government but did not actually lessen regulations. President Trump did. He made a guideline that for every new regulation, two had to be removed. This led to a booming economy and record low unemployment.
Both good and bad presidents have said that we should recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move our embassy there. None of them had the guts to actually do it. President Trump did.
Speaking of Israel, President Obama greatly damaged our relationship with God’s chosen people and our greatest ally. He treated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with contempt. His administration chastised Israel for defending themselves. He backstabbed them and allowed them to be attacked in the United Nations. Most notably, he put Israel in grave danger by appeasing Iran and making a deal to remove sanctions against them and give them billions of dollars without even forcing them to end their nuclear program. President Trump was the most pro-Israel president of my lifetime and maybe ever. He defended Israel in the United Nations, acknowledged their sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and ended the appeasement of Iran by pulling out of the dangerous Iran Nuclear Deal. He was even able to broker peace deals between Israel and Bahrain, Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates.
About ten years ago my health insurance started to rise precipitously in price. President Obama had forced through the government monstrosity now known as Obamacare, which also took away our freedom with regards to our healthcare decisions. President Trump eliminated the individual mandate, taking the teeth out of Obamacare and giving individuals back more control of their healthcare.
After years of weak defense of our nation’s borders, President Trump was able to get over 400 miles of wall built.
There is one rule that is repeated in each of the first five books of the Bible; that murderers should be put to death. The federal government has failed in this responsibility, as only 3 murderers had been executed between 1963 and 2020. President Trump has enforced the death penalty for murderers again, with 13 federal executions being carried out in the last year.
Good presidents and candidates have been lied about and vilified by our biased and corrupt media for decades, frustrating millions of Americans because previous presidents just took the abuse. President Trump fought back and constantly called out the media for their unfairness and propaganda.
One of the great reforms of King Josiah is found in 2 Kings 23:10. “And he defiled Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or daughter pass through the fire to Molech.” To make your child pass through the fire meant to sacrifice them to the Moabite god Molech. This evil practice was not only allowed to happen in Israel by the wicked kings, but kings Ahaz and Manasseh actually sacrificed their own sons. The United States has a similar practice that is protected by the wicked presidents: abortion. Unfortunately, even our good presidents have been inept at curtailing this evil act. President Trump has stepped up to the plate and defended babies. He was the first president to attend the March for Life. He has found a way to block funding for Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the country. Most importantly, he has appointed three pro-life Supreme Court Justices.

You may be wondering why I chose Josiah to compare President Trump to instead of Hezekiah since they both stood up against the status quo and removed the high places, and I have two reasons. First, Hezekiah came earlier and that leads me to compare him to another great president who upset the apple cart, President Reagan. Second, Josiah was only 8 years old when he became king, and President Trump does tend to speak without much tact like a kid might. It is disappointing that too many people couldn’t get past that lack of tact, because like King Josiah, he may be the last great president we ever have. Thank you, President Trump, for making us great again.

Voting and Online Dating Similarities

“I think I’m going to be sick,” I said to my friend as we sat down to eat. It was the early 2000’s and I was part of the first generation of online daters. Back then there was no Tinder or Bumble. We used AOL and talked to girls through instant messages. I looked over at the girl behind the counter. Her name tag matched the girl to whom I had been talking. Her voice matched what I had heard on the phone, but it wasn’t the same girl. I had seen a picture of her. She was a thin brunette with large breasts and a seductive look on her face. The girl who had given us our food was about 5 feet tall and had to be over 200 pounds. I didn’t want to accept it, but I knew the truth. The girl had pretended to be somebody she was not. This phenomenon has become so common that there is even a word for it now – catfishing. I learned an important lesson that day. You have no idea that a person is who they claim to be until you verify it.

I once again have that sick feeling and this time it is far more important. President Trump finished election night with massive leads in almost all of the swing states. Unfortunately, many states allow votes to be counted that we have less verification of who they are coming from than I had with that girl. These mail-in ballots could have been sent in by anybody. In fact, I pick up the mail from the mailbox at my apartment, so I easily could have taken my roommate’s ballot, filled it out, and sent it in to be counted. I looked at the ballot. There is no verification process that would have prevented me from doing that. Most states have made catfishing the ballot box easier than catfishing a naïve, girl-crazed boy.

We have to fix our voting system so that we know who we are dealing with. I got better at it when it came to online dating, so we can use some of the same concepts. Generally, some sort of visual proof is necessary to figure out if a person is who they say they are. They didn’t have reverse web searches back then, and even now those do not always find the picture you’re looking for. Some guys would just assume that if a girl sent pictures that were too attractive she was fake, but that is not always the case, and you don’t want to miss out on a girl who really is the hot girl in the pictures. I’m looking at you, Minnesota Megan.

The first verification method I experimented with was to get multiple pictures instead of trusting just one. It has the benefit of preventing a girl (or maybe even a guy) from grabbing any old photo off the internet and saying it is them. It is an improvement, but you can find multiple pictures of the same girl all over the web, so it is also an easily beatable system. What you have to do is ask the person to send you real-time, spontaneously posed pictures. For example, you would tell the girl to send you a picture of her posing with her pinky to her mouth like Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers movies. Then tell her to send a picture of her balancing a book on her head. Generally, if she can send you those pictures immediately, she is really the girl photographed.

We can use that method to verify voters, but it poses many logistical problems. We need to trust the people doing the verification, so each voting precinct would have to have people supporting both candidates there for the verification process. It would be a tedious and lengthy undertaking, as every single mail-in voter would need to be contacted, one at a time, to confirm their identity matches the name on the ballot, pose for the random pictures and text or email them in, and confirm that the vote on the ballot is the correct vote that they sent in. As you can see, the randomly posed picture solution would be very difficult to pull off without it taking years.

Fortunately, I eventually figured out the one foolproof way to know that you are speaking to the person in the pictures. The only way to be sure is to physically meet the girl in person and match the picture to the actual human being. I know it’s a crazy concept, but I haven’t looked directly at a girl and been fooled into thinking she was someone else since Hayley Mills. How can we put this approach into practice in our elections? Easy. All we have to do is require people to vote in person on Election Day so that we can match them to the photo identification that they provide.

A very smart lawyer that I know basically told me that because Democrats made fraudulent votes nearly impossible to prove, those votes are legal and we shouldn’t say that they are fraudulent. Fine. Let’s just say that the Democrats are catfishing us. He also implied that the only thing we can do is try to get the Democrats who are in power to change the fraudulent system that got them into power in the first place. Good luck with that. I say we need to fight and fight now. If we don’t we may end up in a four-year relationship with Joe Biden, which would certainly be the end of our love affair with liberty.

Intolerant Democrats Get Jewish Man’s Yarmulke Shop on Etsy Shut Down

This story starts a couple of years back when my mother started getting into family genealogy. She mapped out what we already knew, but then had a few family members spit into a tube to send to 23andMe and Ancestry.com to find out more information. We expected most of the interesting stuff to come from my mom’s side. How involved was the Italian part of our family in the mob way back when? Were we even Italian, or were we more Albanian as one of the tests showed? Was my aunt really the mailman’s daughter as they joked with my grandparents?

Interestingly enough, the most surprising thing we found out was on my dad’s side. The test came back and said that he is half Jewish. We had no idea that we had any Jewish in our DNA at all, much less 50%. If you know my dad, his reaction was exactly as you would expect. He took me to the Katella Deli and ate corned beef, latkes, matzah ball soup, babka, gefilte fish, knishes, challah bread, and blintzes. I love my dad.

Fast forward to Christmas, 2019. I wanted to get my dad something imaginative that he wouldn’t expect and would also give him a laugh. Then an idea hit me. I looked online for a “Make America Great Again” yarmulke. It was perfect! I found one on Etsy, a website where people can make crafty products and set up their own “shop” to sell their wares on. The gift was a hit.

Fast forward again, this time to August 27 of this year. In my email I find a message from the guy who I bought the yarmulke from. It began like this:

Dear Valued Customer,
Please forgive us for sending you this unexpected email, you are receiving this because you purchased a “Trump Make America Great” Kippah or Yarmulke from our Etsy store during the past two years. First, I want to thank you for the purchase, you should know that this store was a labor of love to help my kids pay for their Bar and Bat Mitzvah’s, my family is ever grateful to you for being part of that.
We really need you to know the recent sad events that have transpired at our Etsy shop, Etsy who sides in many leftist causes came under pressure from the social media mob and have succumbed and permanently suspended our shop where we sold these MAGA kippahs. It appears a customer showed off their wares on TicTok and got a tsunami of leftist outrage. We were used to getting nasty messages on Etsy but this time Etsy sided with this outrage mob and has shut us down.

My jaw dropped. It isn’t surprising that leftist bullies would go on the attack. Democrats do not tolerate disagreement. The astonishing part was that Etsy had let them get their way and actually closed down this man’s shop. I responded to the email and asked if I could speak to him about what happened and he agreed.

We spoke on the phone last week and he asked that I don’t use his name out of concern for his kids. He told me that his son is a supporter of the president and has been harassed at school and has even been called out on what was described as a “mean girls” kind of webpage meant to “cancel” people. For that reason I will call him Daniel in this article.

Daniel is an interesting man with some insightful perspective on how the left is using Marxist tactics to silence anybody who disagrees with them. You see, Daniel is a Russian Jew who fled here in 1979 at the age of 9. He has seen the left in action in the Soviet Union and is alarmed at the similarities he sees with the Democrats in the United States today. He fears that Democrat policies and tactics will lead to the communism that his family fled from in the Soviet Union. He sees how the left is promoting division and pitting everybody against each other by pushing a victim mentality on people; rich vs. poor, black vs. white, gay vs. straight, male vs. female. He sees the left trying to silence people for having different opinions.

Daniel mentioned another tactic that is being used here in the United States and compared it to something I had never heard of before and had to look into, Josef Stalin’s “Doctor’s Plot.” In it, Stalin falsely accused Jewish doctors of plotting to kill Soviet leaders. Jews were denounced as poisoners and Daniel’s grandmother, who was a doctor with many patients, was reduced to seeing just a handful of patients in secret. Daniel sees Democrats doing the same thing by spreading horrible propaganda against people and vilifying them for political purposes. Just look at the slander the left has perpetrated against the police in our country and you can see the obvious comparison.

I told Daniel that it mystifies me that some Jews in America could ever vote for Democrats after seeing the rising antisemitism in that party. Between Representative Ilhan Omar’s openly anti-Semitic comments, Democrat’s support of the Iran Nuclear Deal that freed up $150 billion for a country that shouts “Death to Israel,” Democrats walking out on a speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Obama turning his back on Israel in the United Nations, some Democrats supporting the “BDS” movement, and the Democratic Convention booing an amendment to their platform that mentioned God and supported recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, it seems unfathomable that any Jew could support Democrats. Daniel told me that many secular Jews have forgotten their roots. He said that “Democrats have been letting Jews down for 80 years.”

I asked Daniel what he thinks us as Americans can do. He said that we need to focus on bringing the culture back. He said, “The left has won the culture war.” When we have major commercial websites shutting down shops for selling items that show support for our president, I fear he is right. This is just the tip of the iceberg of what kind of censorship and persecution we can expect if Democrats win next week.

Daniel had sold over 7,000 Trump yarmulkes before his shop was shut down. Whenever he tried to contact Etsy they told him that his complaint would be sent up the ladder but he never got anywhere with them. I reached out to Etsy and have not received a response. I also looked on Etsy at what other yarmulkes are allowed to be sold and found many, including “Biden/Harris” and “Black Lives Matter” versions.

Daniel has moved his business over to Ebay, and although he does not want me to confirm his identity, if you would like to support him just search on Ebay for “Trump kippahs” and many of the results will be from his shop. Just pick your favorite design and it is likely coming from him.

Can We Trust Our Elections? Grading Each State

There should be an area of agreement between all reasonable people in the United States. For our country to survive we must be able to trust the integrity of our elections. If elected officials are abusing their power like they are in places like California right now, we need to have the ability to vote those people out of office or else there is no check against tyranny. When dishonest politicians are able to steal elections, they will.

Both Democrats and Republicans say that they want honest and fair elections. Both parties have complained about the integrity of our recent and upcoming elections. Unfortunately, they have different ideas about what is taking away the trust in our elections. We heard a lot from Democrats about Russian interference in the 2016 election. In fact, they have spent much of the last 4 years investigating it over and over again. Many of you may wonder how they allege that the Russians changed the outcome in 2016. Did they somehow hack our voting systems and change the vote counts? Did they fly in Russians to swing states where they cast illegal votes? No. The alleged Russian interference is that they said mean things about Hillary Clinton on Facebook. While that may be frustrating to Hillary fans, it does not actually make it easier for anybody to cast fraudulent votes. Plus, how many of you would change your vote because some stranger said something mean on Facebook?

Republicans ask a different question about voting that we should all agree is important. Do we know who is casting the votes in our elections and that no shenanigans are happening with those votes? If we don’t it opens the door to voter fraud, stolen elections, and the end of our government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Do not fall for the media line that very few people get convicted of voter fraud so nobody does it. That’s like saying a Las Vegas club that doesn’t check ID’s has no underage people inside because no underage people got caught.

How can we be more confident about who is voting and that they are correctly counted? The only way to be sure is to require in person voting, on Election Day, with matching photo ID to verify that the person is who they say they are. It’s easy and it’s common sense. Unfortunately, not everybody wants to have honest elections.

Each state sets up their own election laws, so some are far more reliable than others. Some are unwisely pushing for mail-in voting, with nobody there to verify that the person who filled out the ballot is the actual person that the ballot belongs to, and with no guarantee that the ballot will be delivered or counted. In fact, there is already an investigation into military mail-in ballots that were apparently opened and thrown into the garbage in Pennsylvania. The only time a mail-in ballot should be accepted is for overseas military personnel. All 50 states now allow some form of mail-in voting, so nobody gets a perfect score on preventing voter fraud, but some states at least have a few precautions set up.

Unfortunately, other states not only lack rules to prevent election shenanigans, but they come up with ideas to make cheating so easy that the Houston Astros wish they had thought of it. “Ballot harvesting” is the shady practice of allowing a third party to collect ballots and deliver them to be counted. This has all of the negatives of mail-in voting with the added problem of having partisan people targeting which ballots to bring in. In California this practice caused congressional districts that had always voted one way to flip. In many of the cases the returns had one candidate ahead at the end of election night only to swing wildly to the other side the next day. Whenever the results from election night change like that it raises major red flags as to the integrity of those votes.

It’s pretty unbelievable, but some states do not even require you to show identification when you go to vote. That means we have no idea who is casting votes in those states. Here in California, if I walked into a polling place and said my name is Fred Johnson, then I’m Fred Johnson. Apparently in Pennsylvania their Secretary of State said that they would not even throw out a ballot if the signature doesn’t match.

What we need is a report card to know which states have safe enough elections to trust the outcome. Below you will find it, with a grade based on how many precautions are set up to make sure that each vote has been properly cast by the correct, legal voter.

State	Voting Only on Election Day	Voting In Person Only	ID Required to Verify Who Is Voting	Ballot Harvesting and Other Notable Rules	Grade
Alabama	Yes	No, but an excuse is required	Yes	Absentee ballots require witnesses and must be received before the close of polling	A
Alaska	No	No	Yes, but non-photo ID accepted	A special needs voter can have a representative return a ballot	C
Arizona	No	No	Yes, but non-photo ID accepted	Family member, household member, or caregiver can return ballots	C
Arkansas	No	No, but an excuse is required	Yes	Ballot harvesting allowed, but limit two ballots per authorized agent	B
California	No	No, and everyone receives a mailed ballot	No	Ballot harvesting allowed	F
Colorado	No	No, all mail-in election	No	Ballot harvesting allowed	F
Connecticut	Yes	No, but an excuse is required	Yes, but non-photo ID accepted	Others can return votes for disabled voters, with restrictions	B
Delaware	Yes, but early voting passed for 2022	No	ID is requested, but voters can sign an affidavit to avoid showing ID	Unspecified if ballot harvesting is allowed	D
Florida	No	No	Yes	Others can return votes for disabled voters, with restrictions	C
Georgia	No	No	Yes	Others can return votes for disabled voters, with restrictions	C
Hawaii	No	No, all mail-in election	ID is requested, but voters can recite their date of birth and address instead	Unspecified if ballot harvesting is allowed	F
Idaho	No	No	ID is requested, but voters can sign an affidavit to avoid showing ID	Unspecified if ballot harvesting is allowed	F
Illinois	No	No	No	Ballot harvesting allowed	F
Indiana	No	No, but an excuse is required, and coronavirus is not a valid excuse	Yes	Mail ballots must be received before the close of polling	B
Iowa	No	No	Yes, or another voter can vouch for their identity	Ballot harvesting allowed	D
Kansas	No	No	Yes	Ballot harvesting allowed	D
Kentucky	Yes	No, but an excuse is required	Yes	Others can return votes for disabled voter, with restrictions	A
Louisiana	No	No, but an excuse is required, and coronavirus is not a valid excuse	ID is requested, but voters can sign an affidavit to avoid showing ID	Mail ballots require a witness signature and must be received before the close of polling	B
Maine	No	No	No	Ballot harvesting allowed, but limited to five at a time	F
Maryland	No	No	No	Ballot harvesting allowed	F
Massachusetts	No	No	No	Ballots may be delivered by a family member or from a healthcare facility	F
Michigan	No	No	ID is requested, but voters can sign an affidavit to avoid showing ID	Family member or certified election assistant can deliver ballots. Ballots must be received by 6 pm on Election Day	D
Minnesota	No	No	No	Designated agent can return up to three ballots	F
Mississippi	Yes	No, but an excuse is required	Yes	Unspecified if ballot harvesting is allowed. Mail ballots require witnesses and must be received before the close of polling	B
Missouri	Yes	No	Yes, but non-photo is accepted	Ballots can be returned by a family member or a team of election authorities and require witness signatures	B
Montana	No	No	Yes, but non-photo is accepted	Law limited who could return ballots and only six per person, but a judge has held up the law	D
Nebraska	No	No	No	Others can return up to two ballots except for campaign workers	D
Nevada	No	No, and everyone receives a mailed ballot	No	Ballots may be returned by a family member	F
New Hampshire	Yes	No, but an excuse is required	If ID is not presented, the voter signs a challenged voter affidavit and votes a regular ballot. After the election a mailing is sent and the voter must sign and return it; if it is not returned, the voter will be investigated for voter fraud.	Family members, nursing home staff, and residential care staff can return up to four ballots which must be received before the close of polling	B
New Jersey	No	No, and everyone receives a mailed ballot	No	An authorized messenger can return up to three ballots	F
New Mexico	No	No	No	A caregiver or immediate family member can return ballots	F
New York	No	No, but an excuse is required	No	Unspecified if ballot harvesting is allowed	F
North Carolina	No	No	No, although a voter ID law was passed by voters, it was blocked by an Obama appointed judge.	Ballots require witness signature and may be returned by a near relative or legal guardian	F
North Dakota	No	No	Yes	Others can deliver up to four ballots, cannot be a candidate or be compensated	C
Ohio	No	No	Yes, but non-photo is accepted	Ballots can be returned by a family member	D
Oklahoma	No	No	Yes, but non-photo is accepted	Copy of ID, notarized ballot, or two witness signatures required	C
Oregon	No	No, all mail-in election	No	Ballot harvesting allowed	F
Pennsylvania	No	No	No	If voter becomes too sick to vote a representative, deputy sheriff or constable can deliver an emergency absentee ballot	F
Rhode Island	No	No	Yes	Unspecified if ballot harvesting is allowed	D
South Carolina	Yes	No, but an excuse is required, and coronavirus is not a valid excuse	Yes	Ballots may be returned by others except candidates or paid campaign workers and require witness signatures	A
South Dakota	No	No	ID is requested, but voters can sign an affidavit to avoid showing ID	Photo ID required for a mail ballot. An authorized messenger may deliver ballots, but if more than one they must notify the person in charge of the election	D
Tennessee	No	No, and a judge ordered them to allow no-excuse absentee voting	Yes	Unspecified if ballot harvesting is allowed	D
Texas	No	No, but an excuse is required	Photo ID requested. Voters who do not possess an acceptable form of photo ID and cannot obtain one, may present a supporting form of ID and execute a Reasonable Impediment Declaration	Photo ID required for a mail ballot. A household member, relative or person lawfully assisting a voter who is disabled or cannot read the ballot may return the mail ballot	C
Utah	No	No, all mail-in election	No	Unspecified if ballot harvesting is allowed	F
Vermont	No	No, and everyone receives a mailed ballot	No	Unspecified if ballot harvesting is allowed	F
Virginia	No	No	Yes, but non-photo accepted	Witness signature required for mail ballots. A designated representative can return ballot for a voter who is incapacitated or hospitalized	C
Washington	No	No, all mail-in election	No	Unspecified if ballot harvesting is allowed	F
West Virginia	No	No, but an excuse is required	Yes, or be identified by a poll worker	Anyone can return up to two ballots	B
Wisconsin	No	No	Yes	Unspecified if ballot harvesting is allowed. Photo ID required for a mail ballot and witness signature required	C
Wyoming	No	No	No	Unspecified if ballot harvesting is allowed	F

Censorship, Vegas, and Convention Craziness

This is my first article in a few weeks because as you might know, I’ve been busy working on getting my new book, The God Bet, released. The premise of the book is that I will bet anybody a million dollars on which party God would vote for. It is getting good reviews, but so far I have been unable to add it to my “shop” page on Facebook. They rejected it and you won’t believe why. Here is the reason that they sent me:

“It looks like we didn’t approve your item because we don’t allow the sale of adult items or services (ex: sexual enhancement items, adult videos).”

Now, here is a link to the book. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735532916

As you can see, there are no sexual enhancement items or adult videos related to the book cover. As most of you probably know, the cover is taken from Michelangelo’s famous painting The Creation of Adam, which is on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. It depicts God reaching down to give life to Adam, but on my book cover God is reaching out to cast a vote on stone tablets for the party He would support. There is a butt in the painting but it is entirely artistic and non-sexual. In fact, when I looked at the community standards that Facebook has posted it shows a bunch of examples of sexually suggestive pictures that are unacceptable, and then a picture that they say is artistic so it is acceptable. The acceptable example; a picture of Michelangelo’s nude sculpture of David.

The other thing that kept me busy this week was a trip to Las Vegas to visit some friends. It was very interesting to see how the casinos and the people inside were reacting to a disease that is only slightly more likely to kill you than a sharknado. The good news is that nobody was afraid of the coronavirus. People were mingling with each other, dancing together at the bar with a live band, high fiving, gambling, and drinking together. There was only one fear going around Vegas and I agree that we need to fight to end it. The real disease to fear is government licensure. You see, the way that the government controls businesses and takes away freedom is by issuing licenses to conduct business and then threatening to take those licenses away if they don’t do exactly what the government wants. This is why so few restaurants and bars are able to stand up to the government and open without restrictions. If they do, many states threaten to take away their liquor licenses, and most of their profits come from liquor sales. Proponents say that licensing is to protect the consumer, but in reality the free market already does that. If there really was a disease worth being afraid of and you opened your business, people would voluntarily stay away. Think about it. If there was a business that said they were open to people with ebola, would you need the government to take away a license to keep people away? No. And I doubt there was ever a very long waiting list to vacation at a leper colony.

The funny thing is, the people who actually push for licensing are the people who are already in those lines of work. As the brilliant economist Milton Friedman said, “If the real true function of licensing was to protect the consumers, you’d expect the consumers to be lobbying for licensure, but you will discover that it’s always the plumbers or the beauticians or the morticians… there isn’t an occupation you can name that hasn’t been down to the Statehouse trying to get licensure.” Why would businesses want licensing? Because it is a barrier to entry, so it keeps out competition. Less competition lets those who are already in control stay in control. The people who are hurt by licensure are competitors wanting to enter an industry and the consumers. In Las Vegas, the consumers are hurt right now because the casinos are afraid of losing their gaming licenses, so they are forced to require a bunch of silly rules. The one I thought was funny was that to walk through the hotels and casinos they required that you wear a mask, but if you were smoking you could keep the mask down. In a related story, I now smoke three packs a day.

The other big thing that happened this week was the Democratic Convention. I must admit, I didn’t watch it. I already knew what they were going to say. Trump is bad. Then the media would fawn over each speaker. I do have 2 observations, though. First, the media narrative that Republicans are turning on the president because John Kasich spoke is ridiculous. John Kasich spoke because he has a fragile ego and President Trump hurt his feelings 4 years ago when he beat him in the primaries. All his speech shows is that his hurt feelings are more important to him than his principles. He claims to be pro-life, but if he’s supporting Joe Biden he is not. He claims to be a fiscal conservative, but if he supports Joe Biden he is not. He has completely lost any respect from conservatives. If he had any backbone he would handle it differently. Ted Cruz, for example, has proven that he actually cares more about doing what is right than his ego. President Trump ripped on Senator Cruz relentlessly during the primaries 4 years ago. I’m sure his feelings were hurt by some of the brutal personal attacks, but Senator Cruz cares more about America than holding personal grudges, and has put the campaign behind him and become a strong ally of the president in conservative policies. I have gained a lot of respect and confidence in Cruz. John Kasich should toughen up and stop crying about sour grapes from 2016.

The second observation is that the Democrats actually did it. They nominated a guy that they admitted was corrupt just months ago. It wasn’t even the Republicans who were accusing Biden of being corrupt. It was his own party, the same Democrats who just picked him to top their ticket. You may not remember it because that isn’t how they framed it in the media. They framed it this way. “President Trump should be impeached because he tried to gain an advantage over his future political opponent, Joe Biden, by asking Ukraine to investigate him.” Think about what that’s saying. If Joe Biden didn’t do anything wrong, how would it be an advantage to President Trump to clear him? It wouldn’t. The only way it would be an advantage is if an investigation would uncover corruption. Democrats can’t have it both ways. Either they are saying that they impeached the president for trying to clear their candidate of wrongdoing, which doesn’t make sense, or they’re saying that their candidate is corrupt. Yet they chose him as their best. Remember that when you vote.

Free Market Solutions to Big Government Bullies

Big government is bad whether my side is in charge or the other guys are.

We as conservatives should try not to use the government as a sledgehammer to force people to do what we want like Democrats do. They want us to stay home and close our restaurants; they use the government, and threats to take away liquor licenses to strong arm those restaurants. They want a baker or a florist to participate in a same-sex wedding; they use government threats and fines to force them to go against their religious beliefs. They want “free” healthcare, college, or whatever else they think they can promise for votes; they use the government to confiscate money from people to pay for it.

Conservatives should not become authoritarian tyrants like those on the left. We should be true to our principles and keep the government out of people’s lives as much as possible. Instead of wielding government power to get our way, I suggest we use imaginative free market ways to fight for our side when we can. I have a few suggestions.

1. This is an idea for Christians who still want to work in the wedding industry. Bakers, florists and musicians have been targeted by bullies who cannot tolerate anyone who does not agree with them or does not do exactly what they want. The most publicized of these instances was Jack Phillips, the baker in Colorado who politely declined to make a cake for a same-sex wedding because of religious convictions. In true leftist fashion, the couple ran to the government to compel Phillips to bake cakes for same-sex weddings. He had to fight the government all the way up to the Supreme Court where, fortunately, he prevailed.

There are certainly times to fight in court and I am thrilled that Jack Phillips was victorious, but my solution would keep the government out of it and instead use the freedom to choose. I suggest simply putting in place a policy that says this:

“A percentage of the profits from all same-sex weddings will be donated in the name of the couple to charity. They may choose between Alliance Defending Freedom, Family Research Council, or Focus on the Family.”

2. The loss of liberty we have experienced in 2020 is unprecedented in the United States. The government has locked us in our homes, taken our jobs, closed our businesses, cancelled our sports and entertainment, and even stopped us from seeing a friendly smile to brighten our day.

This is a very urgent fight right now, and it has to be done through the free market in places like California because big government Democrats control every part of the government. The method of attack is pretty clear. Businesses have to fight the government every step of the way and we, the customers, have to support them by frequenting the places that are fighting. In fact, in May I started a fundraiser through my blog for people to donate to businesses that opened up against the lockdown orders. Last week my friends and I went down and presented a check to Jeff Gourley, the owner of Nomads Canteen, which was the first restaurant in Orange County to open up back in May. If you want to donate, click here and we will give it to another deserving business who is standing up for our freedom.

3. When Colin Kaepernick started slandering our police as racists who go to work looking for black people to murder and NFL players all around the league jumped on board with that lie I anticipated a problem. How was I going to show my disapproval? The obvious answer was to stop watching NFL games, but I dismissed that solution because I could see it leading to quite a moral dilemma for me down the road. You see, consistency is very important to me. I could handle boycotting the NFL because football is not one of my top priorities, but baseball is my life, and what would I do when some brain-dead baseball player decided to kneel during the national anthem?

Then it came to me. It was such a brilliant alternative that I think we should try to make it a movement. These kneeling players wanted to make a difference, so I thought of a way to let them know that they did. I vowed on social media that for every cop hating player who kneels for the anthem I will donate $1 in their name to President Trump’s re-election campaign fund. Today I am fulfilling that promise by donating $212 to President Trump’s campaign. It took some research but the best lists I found showed 211 NFL players who joined in on the anthem protests. I intend to tweet every player that I can find to let them know about their contribution.

Oh yeah. You might be wondering about that extra dollar. It is for Bruce Maxwell, the only Major League Baseball player who knelt during the national anthem. He is no longer in the league, not because of his protest, but because he might have trouble hitting off of some of the Little Leaguers I train.

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