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Bruce’s Ten Hot Takes for July 24, 2023

hot takes

The greatest disease threat to humans is not wildlife; it’s our fellow homo sapiens.

If states such as Alabama and Texas can ignore Federal court orders without consequence, other states will do the same, upending the rule of law.

Many Christian nationalists and white supremacists are itching for a civil war.

Disgraced ex-president Donald Trump will be indicted in Georgia. If convicted, Governor Kemp will pardon him.

Following Governor Ron DeSantis’ explanation of slavery, I think I’ll kidnap a Haitian teenager, keep him locked up in my garage, and teach him to mow my lawn and trim my trees. One day, after he becomes the CEO of IBM, he will thank me for treating him like a slave.

At the root of capitalism is the exploitation of labor; getting the most work and productivity out of employees for the least possible money.

Terms Republicans can’t define: socialism, communism, critical race theory, and atheism.

The My Pillow guy will go bankrupt by 2025.

Polly heard cicadas last week. Fall is sneaking up in the upper Midwest. Soon a wooly worm will be seen crossing the road.

The Cincinnati Reds will make the playoffs this year if they trade for starting pitching before the August 1 trade deadline.

Bonus: Sex gets better after sixty, but those damn Charley horses sure are annoying.

Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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7 Comments

  1. Avatar
    Charles S. Oaxpatu

    I agree with most of these statements. In the early 1800s, President Andrew Jackson ignored the ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court against removing Native American tribes to the west of the Mississippi River. Jackson said something to the effect of: “The high court has made its ruling—-now let it enforce the ruling.” The court had no physical means to do so, and the Indians were forcibly removed against the law. Two things need to be done when Trump is gone:

    1) The U.S. Supreme Court and the rest of the federal court system must be given the means to enforce bench rulings. At a minimum, this should include its own, large, special federal police force and its own unique prison facilities over which it has full and complete control.

    2) The U.S. Congress should be granted its own prison facilities so it can officially use the U.S. Capitol Police Force to arrest and imprison any person who fails to respond to a congressional subpoena or any person who is held in contempt of Congress by a congressional committee.

    This is what I learned after suffering through the tyranny of the first Trump Administration. If federal authority is given, sufficient means to enforce that authority should be given in parallel with it. I may never know how our founding fathers missed this, but they sure seem to have done so. I think they were depending on the old 18th and 19th century concept of a “gentleman’s personal honor.” We have to understand that no such concept exists any longer today among most men and women. Therefore, the law must prescribe and be able to implement the means to force dishonorable men and women into doing the right and legal thing—–whether they want to do so or not.

  2. Avatar
    bob

    Below are the only Hot Takes that I disagree with – the reasons vary:

    “The My Pillow guy will go bankrupt by 2025.”
    We can only hope – but if you mean that he’ll get to legally screw a bunch of his creditors, then yes, I agree with this one as well.

    “The Cincinnati Reds will make the playoffs this year if they trade for starting pitching before the August 1 trade deadline.”
    Not a sports fan.

    Bonus: Sex gets better after sixty, but those damn Charley horses sure are annoying.
    I don’t think I have had sex since I turned sixty, so I think I disagree.

  3. Avatar
    MJ Lisbeth

    Few events have done more to chill me to the bone than Ron De Santis’ revision of the history of slavery. Then again, he is a leader of a party that counts among its members folks who believe that an unwanted pregnancy is “the will of” or “a gift from” God, I.e., that rape and incest can have positive outcomes.

    “On doit des égards aux vivants ; on ne doit aux morts que la vérité”—Voltaire

    (To the living we owe respect; to the dead, we owe only the truth.)

  4. Avatar
    Troy

    Re: “Disgraced ex-president Donald Trump will be indicted in Georgia. If convicted, Governor Kemp will pardon him.”
    This is incorrect : Georgia’s governor doesn’t have the power to pardon. Instead Georgia’s GOP passed a law to create an oversight commission with the power to remove local prosecutors and district attorneys from their jobs. That’s what to look out for.

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