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Bruce’s Ten Hot Takes for December 23, 2024

hot takes

Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 record two different creation accounts. They cannot be reconciled without resorting to Bible gymnastics. Evangelicals, of course, love gymnastics.

Donald Trump is threatening to seize the Panama Canal unless Panama reduces the fees charged to go through the canal. I thought Trump was a capitalist.

Donald Trump, once again, is demanding Denmark sell Greenland to the United States. Evidently, he doesn’t understand the concept of sovereignty. This is understandable since the founding of our nation was built upon ignoring the sovereignty of indigenous people.

I am troubled by how many atheists think it is okay to commit murder, as in the case of Luigi Mangione’s murder of healthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

Is anyone surprised that Matt Gatez had sex with an underage girl, hired prostitutes, and used illegal drugs? I’m not. What surprises me is that Gaetz is married and his wife hasn’t divorced him.

Donald Trump plans to go after transgender people, banning access to gender-affirming care, not permitting them to serve in the military, and forbidding transgender women from playing women’s sports. These issues deserve a vigorous science-based debate, but that’s not Trump’s approach. He thinks he is a king, and citizens must bow to his edicts.

I predict Donald Trump and his current co-president Elon Musk will have a falling out. Musk is a publicity whore, and if there’s anything we know about Trump, he will quickly push Musk out of the limelight. In MAGA World, only Trump can be in the limelight.

It’s high school basketball time in Ohio, my favorite time of year. I miss photographing local high school games. I had to retire from doing so due to being unable to hold my camera properly. The weight of my professional camera and lenses put a strain on my neck and back, causing me increased pain. One thing I don’t need is more pain.

I feel bad for our feral/stray cats. Temperature lows are now in the teens. We have four inside cats — all stray/shelter cats — and that’s our limit. So we do what we can. We feed and water them. I also bought three oversized storage tubs, cut holes in their sides, and put straw in them, hoping they shelter the cats from the worst of winter. So far, five cats have been using the shelters.

The Democratic Party is headed for a nasty split as centrist, corporate Democrats continue to disparage and marginalize progressives. Nancy Pelosi and her gang of corporate shills need to go.

Bonus: MAGA Republicans in Congress have made it clear that they plan to reign in “entitlements,” including Social Security and Medicare. Instead of raising taxes, they plan to cut benefits by raising the retirement age. The suggestion that the Social Security Fund is insolvent is a bald-faced lie. How about demanding Congress pay back the trillions of dollars it has borrowed from the fund?

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen 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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9 Comments

  1. Avatar
    Yulya Sevelova

    Thanks for helping out those poor cats that have no good homes yet, Bruce ! It’s something that many of your neighbors should do. Along with a vigorous spay/ neuter program, lol. DT won’t succeed in browbeating Panama about the Canal – too little,too late. They don’t like us because of all Neoliberal meddling in their politics. Which back fired in a major way,as we all know. The shooting of that United Health CEO does set a bad precedent, but it’s a warning sign that people are fed up with the oligarchy. There’s so much anger in society, you can sure see this in Cali. Especially in places like LA, and SF.

  2. Avatar
    TheDutchGuy

    Good for you Bruce. I remember cats suffering in the Ohio winter and I’m sorry to say we didn’t appreciate they needed shelter. I feel guilt remembering our callousness toward our animals. Life on the farm, huh?

  3. Avatar
    John S.

    Bruce as a fellow cat 🐈‍⬛ lover I greatly appreciate what you do to help your (yes, you are now their “human”) outdoor feline companions. Leslie and I had to put our cat of 14 and a half years Bella to sleep in September. I buried her in the back of my in-laws property in Preble Co. near Eaton. Whenever I’m up there I visit the little grave stone I put there.

    They really do touch your hearts. Bella was our constant companion. I brought her home when she was a stray kitten and I buried her after she had passed. She was with me through a lot of emotional ups and downs. I still miss her.

    As far as the killing of the CEO of United Healthcare, I have complex thoughts, as I do on a lot of other topics. Respect for another person’s life should be universal, regardless of political or religious belief. But that respect is a two way street. As CEO of one of the US’s largest healthcare providers, he oversaw the adoption of an AI system that was designed to automatically deny a claim, making the sick person go through the appeal process. I’ve often pondered if there was a deeper meaning to the time Jesus told Peter, “He who lives by the sword will die by the sword”. I think that idea can extend to greed, particularly the type of corporate greed this CEO became addicted to. Do I support Luigi’s action? No, absolutely not. Do I understand why it happened? Absolutely. Does it need to be a wake-up call to corporate America, as well as our politicians, about the dystopian state of our healthcare system? Yes!

  4. Avatar
    ObstacleChick

    Thank you for caring for the cats in the frigid weather.

    It’s wrong to murder someone. I do understand the anger over corporate greed. Healthcare for profit is unethical. We should have universal Healthcare, not this profit-driven system dependent on one’s place of employment. Violence is often a precursor to change, but while it’s understandable and sometimes effective, that doesn’t make it right.

    As for the Democrats, they are a shit-show. Their septagenarian and octogenarian leaders need to step aside for younger leadership. Allowing Biden to run for a second term when he had explicitly said when he ran in 2020 that he would not run again was detrimental to the 2024 election. Their messaging was inadequate. Their leadership is just as beholden to billionaires as the GOP, but they pretend like they aren’t.

    Sometimes I wish Europe and Canada would invade and take us over. 🤣

    Why are people so obsessed with trans people? The trans people I know just want to be left the fuck alone to live their lives.

    The US is fucked. We probably have been for decades, but it’s really bad now.

  5. Avatar
    Kathy Hughes

    Like you, I’m NOT surprised about the revelations about Matt Gaetz’s sleazy behavior, and I am equally surprised that his wife hasn’t left him. She should take the report as a warning about his suitability as her husband. Gaetz won’t let a little thing like being married stop his carousing.

  6. Avatar
    John S.

    I’ve just read about the findings in the Matt Gaetz ethics investigation. What a damn hypocrite! He’s now trying to grift some money for his PAC, going to the Yay-Jesus! Evangelical playbook- “look at me, I’m being oppressed!”.

    I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired. I love my faith. I increasingly do not love the people who claim to be Jesus’ probation officers. Especially the ones who also have political power. All I can say is that I am sorry to everyone on this page for what these Christians say and do.

    • Avatar
      Yulya Sevelova

      Well said, John. I had to go out to the store today,and when I got back, I turned on the radio and learned that Jimmy Carter passed away at his home earlier today. I thought, the end of an era now. So few of any kind of Kennedy type Democrats anywhere these days. I’m reading a book, ” Autocracy Inc,” by Anne Applebaum. America’s conservative Christians are so much like those magistrates in the UK and other parts of Europe,when the genocidal colonization of the Third World was in full swing. I’m bummed out by all of it.

  7. Pingback:Christmas Week ReviewedGaetz Bumped, What Trump Wants, MAGAFolk, Musk, Pay to Pray – Red State Blues

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