I spent most of my sixty-seven years on Earth living in rural Ohio. Outside of a few years in California and Arizona, I lived my formative years in Northwest Ohio, attending schools in Bryan, Harrod, Farmer, Ney, Deshler, Mt. Blanchard, and Findlay. My travels put me in close contact with Mexican migrant workers. While most of these workers would come and go depending on what crops needed picking, some of them stayed in Ohio after their work was done. Migrants, many of whom spoke little English, assimilated into our culture, taking jobs, marrying, and raising their families. Over time, multiple generations of Mexican families made rural Northwest Ohio their home. They have, in every way, added to the richness of our communities, even though racist epitaphs are still hurled their way.
Many of those migrants who originally stayed in our communities are undocumented; people Donald Trump and the Republican Party call “illegals.” Trump would love for us to believe that all of these undocumented workers are “undesirables” who must be immediately rounded up and deported to Mexico. Suppose Trump and his MAGA cronies have their way. In that case, more than eleven million undocumented people — most of whom hold gainful employment and pay taxes — will be violently ripped from their communities and families and returned to countries many of them have never visited.
Republicans and Democrats agree that the United States has an immigration problem; that conditions at our southern border are unsustainable. How to fix this problem is where disagreements arise. Trump wants to ship undocumented workers back to where they came from, wholesale, and in doing so will tank the U.S. economy. Democrats want to see meaningful paths to citizenship for everyone here illegally. If they are gainfully employed and don’t have serious criminal backgrounds, we must provide a way for them to become legal. Trump’s policies, and those of Project 2025, hail to the days when we rounded up indigenous people and Japanese-Americans and locked them up against their will in internment camps or reservations.
Just remember, that dear Mexican family who lives next to you may have parents or grandparents who are here illegally. Do you want to destroy their families so that you can defend the mythical Great Replacement theory? We can and must fix our southern border, but not at the expense of people who have played an essential part in our communities and workforce.
Bruce Gerencser Ney, Ohio
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.
Supposedly, Democrats are (generally) people of science and reason. Conspiracy theories and cultism are largely the domain of the MAGA wing of the Republican Party. That is, until a man tried to assassinate ex-president Donald Trump. I am shocked by how many of my fellow liberals and progressives have turned into conspiracy theorists. They think that the attempted assassination of Trump was a false flag; a staged event. In their minds, the whole event was political theater orchestrated by the Hollywood actor Donald Trump.
Imagine, for a moment, how many people would have to be involved in the attempted assassination for it to be a staged event. Right up there with fake moon landings and a flat earth. Do you realize how absurd such thinking is?
Please stop. There’s enough crazy in the world without adding to it.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.
Over the weekend a twenty-year-old man perched on top of a building with a semi-automatic assault rifle attempted to assassinate ex-president Donald Trump. The shooter failed in his attempt, grazing Trump’s ear, wounding one bystander, and killing another.
Evangelicals, who are largely members of the MAGA cult, believe Trump was chosen by God to be the forty-seventh president of the United States. Worse, many Evangelicals think Trump won the 2020 presidential election; that Democrats stole the election. Eight out of ten voting white Evangelicals voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020, and recent polls suggest that they will vote for him again in November. No matter how many pussies he grabbed, how many women he sexually assaulted, or how many crimes he committed, Evangelicals are convinced that Trump is God’s man for such a time as this. As a result, Evangelicals see God’s providence in keeping a bullet from killing Trump. Evidently, God’s providence didn’t apply to the fireman, a family man, killed at the rally. All Evangelicals seem to care about is their cult leader.
God, of course, did not protect Trump’s life. Trump is alive for one reason and one reason alone; the shooter missed. The fireman is dead for one reason and one reason alone: the shooter didn’t miss. Trump was lucky. Sadly, the fireman was not.
“God protected Trump” is a faith claim, for which Evangelicals cannot provide a shred of evidence. If you believe in a hands-on personal deity who numbers the hairs on our heads and is the giver and taker of life, it stands to reason you believe God providentially kept Trump from having a permanent headache. However, until Evangelicals provide evidence for the existence of God, I am going to say that Trump is one lucky son-of-a-bitch.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.
MSNBC talking head, Lawrence O’Donnell, thinks all the questions about Joe Biden’s health have been answered. Not even close, Lawrence.
I’m not a Joe Biden fan. I’ve never been a fan. He wasn’t my first, second, or third choice in the primaries, and the only reason I voted for him in 2020 was the fact he wasn’t Donald Trump. I used the same approach when voting for Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Some of my friends and acquaintances want me to ignore what I see with my own eyes: Joe Biden’s health is declining, and even if he wins reelection, he has a one in three chance of dying in office.
I continue to be amazed by Democrats who think that no one else but Joe Biden can beat Trump in November. Really? With a 37 percent approval rating?
We currently have at least twelve feral/stray cats we are feeding, including a mother with four kittens, and a female with one kitten. We have three inside cats of our own — all rescues. It infuriates me that people are not held accountable for abandoning their cats or allowing them to roam unspayed.
Google made drastic changes to its search algorithm earlier this year. Result? Sites losing thousands and millions of visitors and page views. Traffic for this site is down 30-40 percent.
Several weeks ago, I worried that we wouldn’t have any young raccoons in our backyard this summer. Good news! They finally showed up: three adults and five young raccoons are in our yard as I write.
Our newest cat, Charley, is about nine months old. He’s quite clumsy. Last night, Charley tried to jump in the window above our couch — where I’m presently sitting. He missed, clobbering me in the head as he fell, scratching my left ear. Boy, did it bleed, and, boy, did I cuss. 🙂
I have major back surgery scheduled for August 19, at ProMedica Hospital in Toledo. A routine pre-op chest x-ray revealed a spot on the lower lobe of my left lung. This will require a CT scan on Friday to make sure nothing is amiss. My physician said, “Better to air on the side of caution.”
The Reds sweep the New York Yankees, and then turn around and get swept by the Detroit Tigers. Arg! Baseball. ⚾️
Bonus: Busy week ahead: medical tests, Band of Horses concert, Reds game vs. Colorado Rockies, dinner (Mancy’s Steakhouse), and overnight stay (Hancock Hotel) in Findlay with my partner of 46 years. I’m pushing it physically, but my present mantra is “I only die once.” If not today — when?
Double Bonus: Recent election results in Britain and France give me a glimmer of hope. I fear, however, that the United States will face a lot more upheaval and turmoil before we finally uproot MAGA extremism from our midst. We will likely have to have a “Brexit” moment before people see the bankruptcy of right-wing extremism. That’s the optimistic side of me speaking. My pessimistic side thinks our democracy is in decline and will not survive another Trump presidency, and may not do all that well with a Biden win. Our “rot” is there for all to see. “Hey, did you see who won American Idol?”
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.
By Dr. David Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen, TheologyArcheology: A Site for the Glory of God, Who Are They Going to Vote For, Then?
Everyone and his dog knows that Mr. Trump faced nothing but kangaroo courts and those verdicts are ludicrous. There was no justice in those trials and it was widely advertised that they would get Mr. Trump. That is not how the law is supposed to work yet in his case, that is how it went.
If there is anyone Christians should not be voting for it is Mr. Biden and the rest of the democrats. They are the party that supports sin and evil, calling them good and right, as well as normal and no Christian in their right mind can vote for such policies or people.
We have also seen the Democrats abuse and ignore the nation’s laws to fulfill their agendas. This is the point of why shaming Christians for removing their support from Mr. Trump. The opposition knows that it is the Christian block that can make or break an election and the democrats are doing everything in their power to ensure they win the election.
If they do win the election, say good-bye to America as that country needs to be destroyed for the one-world government to take over. Plus, with America out of the way, other nations will destroy their neighbors and too many innocent people will die for no reason other than the democrats want power and control over everything.
Don’t be fooled by the news pundits, the leftist politicians, and others who try to get Christians’ support away from Mr. Trump. It is not wrong for Christians to vote for Mr. Trump nor is it wrong to support his candidacy.
There is no perfect candidate in this race and there are no better ones to vote for. Mr. Trump has already proven how good he would be as president as we have his first 4 years providing us the evidence we need to see that he will do a good job.
Biden has failed in his four years and he is senile now. No one can vote for him as he is not qualified to be president. It is an embarrassment to see him led around by his wife. He is the leader of the strongest nation in the world yet he is not capable of walking under his own direction.
That is embarrassing and pitiful. Make your own choices for whom to vote and make sure you select wisely as your security and safety are at stake.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.
The Republican Party is pretty much a monoculture, with little, if any diversity, among its members. Thanks to the influence of fascist, criminally-indicted former president Donald Trump, MAGA (Make America Great Again) policies dominate and control the Republican Party. I suspect there are more than a few Republican politicians who personally despise Trump and the MAGA wing of the Party, but they know that without Trump’s and MAGA’s support, they can’t win. These spineless Republicans know that just one social media post from Trump can sink their election/reelection chances. So they say nothing when Trump espouses policies that are not only hateful, racist, and anti-democratic, they pretend the man is not a narcissist and pathological liar. (All politicians lie, but Trump lies multiple times every day, eight days a week.)
There was a time when the Democratic Party was considered a big-tent political group, but some within the Party are now demanding loyalty to President Joe Biden and any and every policy deemed “Democratic.” Granted, the Democrats don’t have people such as Marjorie “Moscow” Taylor-Green, Matt “Child Molester” Gaetz, Tom Cotton, Ted “Cancun” Cruz, Paul “Nazi” Gosar, Lauren “Hand Job” Boebert, and Josh “The Cowardly Lion” Hawley demanding fealty under pains of political execution, there are those within the Democratic Party who marginalize and denigrate those who dare hold positions contrary to those of the Biden Administration. Democrats such as John Fetterman, Jon Tester, Joe Manchin, Bernie Sanders, and The Squad (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Presley, Rashida Tlaib, Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush, Greg Casar, Summer Lee, and Delia Ramirez) face increasing pressure from mainstream and centrist Democrats to toe the party line. For example, I oppose John Fetterman’s pro-Israel view, but I reject the notion that Fetterman is not a “real” Democrat.
Joe Biden needs the various factions within the Democratic Party to vote for him if he hopes to win the 2024 presidential election. Disparaging and marginalizing pro-Palestinian, anti-war, socialist, or pro-environment Democrats is a sure way to drive these voters to the open arms of the campaigns of Robert Kennedy, Jr., Cornel West, and Jill Stein (or could lead to protest votes for Marianne Williamson). Young voters, in particular, are more likely to be anti-war, pro-environment, and have socialist tendencies. Pretending these people don’t exist will only ensure that Biden goes down to defeat in November. Young voters may not have much real-world experience, but they know hypocrisy when they see it. They “hear” the pathetic challenges from Biden and his feckless cabinet to Israel’s genocidal slaughter of over 34,000 Palestinians in Gaza, while, at the same time, seeing the President and Democrats in Congress give Israel $18 billion to continue its immoral war. These young folks make, as they should, a direct connection between U.S.-funded and supplied bombs, bullets, drones, and missiles and daily reports of bloodshed, violence, and death in Gaza. They see the mutilated bodies of Palestinian children and know that the United States is directly responsible for their deaths.
I am a member of the local Democratic Party’s executive committee. I was elected to this position in March. I made it clear to Party leaders that while I am a proud Democrat, I have policy positions that run contrary to that of the Defiance County and State Democratic Party. I made sure they understood that I was an atheist; a humanist; a pacifist; and a socialist. They knew or should have known, anyway, that I am an outspoken writer who uses this blog and letters to the editor of the local newspaper to advance my cause. I will gladly support the Democratic Party at every level, but I will not silence my voice just to give the Party the appearance of MAGA-like unity. I grew up in a home with a mother who spoke her mind on political issues; and who was unafraid to voice her opinion in public forums. I continue to follow in her footsteps — thirty plus years after her suicide — albeit from the other side of the political aisle.
The Democratic Party has my support, but it does not have my loyalty. I refuse to say the Pledge of Allegiance because it is a loyalty pledge. I am grateful to be an American. I can’t imagine living in any other place than in the good ole USA. That said, I reject demands of political conformity and fealty. Nations and governments come and go. My objective is to work towards making the United States a better place to live. Most of all, I want my six children and sixteen grandchildren to have promising, prosperous, happy futures. When Democratic (or Republican) policies meet my desires and expectations, they can count on my support. When they don’t, the Democratic Party can expect to hear from me. Demands for Party loyalty will be rejected. If the Party’s tent is not big enough for someone like me, that’s their loss, not mine. I will do all I can to promote and advance Democratic policies and candidates, but what I will not do is abandon my political beliefs just so the Party can present to the public a facade of unity. Political debate and diversity are important for the health of the Democratic Party. The moment I’m told to be quiet or tone down my opinions or rhetoric is when I (and scores of other like-minded people) exit the tent.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.
There’s been a lot of talk on mainstream news and social media about “white rural rage.” Supposedly, rural communities are hotbeds of racism, misogyny, violence, and rage. Supposedly, rural communities are awful places to live, populated with ill-bred, uneducated, knuckle-dragging Neanderthals. Rural people are hopeless and helpless, with wrong ideas about the world.
As I read these caricatures of me and my neighbors, I wonder if the people making them have actually talked to rural people? When I hear Chris Hayes and other talking heads on MSNBC say that my people don’t understand economics; that the economy is booming; that the macroeconomic numbers say that life is grand for rural folks, I want to scream. Again, I ask Hayes and his fellow liberals, “Have you actually talked to people you think are too dumb or too influenced by Trump to really understand what is going on?” I doubt it.
I will soon turn sixty-seven years old. I was born in the rural northwest Ohio community of Bryan. I have spent most of my life living in rural communities throughout northwest and southeast Ohio. I am 100 percent country — proudly so. There was a time when rural Ohio was decidedly blue. Democrats routinely won state and local elections. Those days are long gone, and have been years before the fascist Donald Trump arrived on the scene. So what’s changed?
There was a time when well-paying union jobs were common. Those days are gone. Scores of factories have closed their doors. Factories that once had thousands of employees, now have hundreds. Who is to blame for this? Not the workers. The blame rests solely at the feet of federal and state officials. International trade agreements signed first by Bill Clinton and continued by every president since then, have destroyed rural economies.
There was a time when rural downtowns were booming. Those days are gone, and have been since the late 1980s. Who is to blame? State and local politicians, who sold their souls to big box corporations and restaurant franchisees. Politicians handed out billions of dollars of tax abatements and free infrastructure improvements to these predatory corporations, all the while letting their downtowns and small businesses die.
There was a time when small family farms dotted the rural landscape. Those days are gone. Corporate farming and concentrated animal feeding operations (factory farms) dominate the scene, often polluting the air and fouling waterways. Who is to blame? Capitalistic-driven politicians who think “bigger is better.” Now farmers are forced to get bigger to survive, turning a blind eye to animal welfare and the destruction of soil.
There was a time when rural high school graduates went to college and returned to work in their home communities after graduation. Those days are gone. Now our children leave and don’t return. Why? A lack of well-paying jobs. My oldest son is an upper-level manager at a large local manufacturing concern. He has numerous employees with four-year degrees running machines for him. They left, got an education, and triumphantly returned home, thinking well-paying jobs awaited them. Instead, they make $15-20 an hour while trying to pay off $50,000-$100,000 or more in student loan debt. Their school guidance counselors sold them a bill of goods. Education is the door to prosperity, they were told, only to learn that their counselors, teachers, and parents lied to them.
How people often view country folk
Every aspect of rural life has changed. Wages are stagnant or in decline, but prices, across the board continue to increase — especially healthcare. Our only saving grace is that housing, food, and transportation costs are generally lower than in cities or urban areas. But even here, housing prices are increasing, making it harder for people to find affordable apartments and homes. Corporate healthcare companies have scooped up local hospitals and medical practices, driving up prices and making it harder for residents to get care. Poor people, in particular, face long wait times to get appointments with doctors who take Medicaid — if they can even find one. Need a dentist? Good luck with that. Not one dentist locally accepts Medicaid, forcing poor people to go to Toledo or Fort Wayne for care, often waiting months to see a dentist.
Rural people share some of the blame for what has happened to them. Slash and burn Republicans have repeatedly cut taxes, destroying local tax bases, yet rural residents continue to vote them into office. It infuriates me that so many of my neighbors vote against their own self-interest. Why don’t they vote for Democrats? Would you vote for people who routinely disparage you, talk down to you, and call you names? Democrats have lost all touch with rural America, and in doing so, ceded the rural communities, counties, and states to right-wing extremists.
Rural people are largely religious — Christian. Most of them don’t attend church on any given Sunday, but when asked they will affirm their love for God and the Bible. The current culture wars loom large in rural communities, and this helps fuel discontent (though not to the degree that MSNBC would have you believe). Instead of engaging rural folks on these issues, what do Democrats do? They largely ignore them or call them names.
Most of the blame for what has befallen rural Americans rests on the shoulders of local, state, and federal politicians. Laws and policies routinely cause harm, as money for school and infrastructure improvements dries up. If rural people feel forgotten, it is because they have been.
If Democrats ever hope to effect change in rural America, then they must come to where we live and talk to us. Senator Sherrod Brown is running for reelection. Great guy. I will vote for him in November. Yet, at a community meeting in support of Brown’s election on Friday, Sherrod will not be in attendance. Instead, his brother will speak on his behalf. That doesn’t cut it. I want to see the guy who wants my vote. Of course, Brown knows that he will likely only get 30-40 percent of the local vote. Why bother, right? If Democratic politicians don’t “bother,” they are, in effect, giving up, consigning us to more Republican rule. This is the kind of thinking, by the way, that lost Hillary Clinton the 2016 presidential election.
The reasons for the decline of rural America are complex and many. However, telling us that we are racist, misogynistic violent, rage-filled county hicks is not helpful, and it only fuels the disdain rural folks have for liberals, progressives, and city folks. It is doubtful that rural northwest Ohio will turn blue any time soon, but inroads can be made through honest interaction, debate, and discussion. At the very least, opposing sides will understand where the other is coming from.
Let me conclude this post with a letter to the editor written in 2017 by essayist and agrarian Wendell Berry (my favorite author):
To the Editors:
Since the 2016 election, urban liberals and Democrats have newly discovered “rural America,” which is to say our country itself beyond the cities and the suburbs and a few scenic vacation spots. To its new discoverers, this is an unknown land inhabited by “white blue-collar workers” whom the discoverers fear but know nothing about. And so they are turning to experts, who actually have visited rural America or who previously have heard of it, to lift the mystery from it.
One such expert is Nathaniel Rich, whose essay “Joan Didion in the Deep South” offers an explanation surpassingly simple: over “the last four decades,” while the enlightened citizens of “American cities with international airports” have thought things were getting better, the “southern frame of mind” has been “expanding across the Mason-Dixon line into the rest of rural America.” As Mr. Rich trusts his readers to agree, the “southern frame of mind” is racist, sexist, and nostalgic for the time when “the men concentrated on hunting and fishing and the women on ‘their cooking, their canning, their ‘prettifying.’…”
This is provincial, uninformed, and irresponsible. Mr. Rich, who disdains all prejudices except those that are proper and just, supplies no experience or observation of his own and no factual and statistical proofs. He rests his judgment solely upon the testimony of Joan Didion in her notes from a tour of “the Gulf South for a month in the summer of 1970.” Those notes contain portraits of southerners whom “readers today will recognize, with some dismay and even horror” because (as Mr. Rich seems vaguely to mean) southerners have not changed at all since 1970. The Didion testimony alone is entirely sufficient because she “saw her era more clearly than anyone else” and therefore “she was able to see the future.”
What is remarkable about Mr. Rich’s essay is that he attributes the southernization of rural America, and the consequent election of Mr. Trump, entirely to nostalgia “for a more orderly past,” without so much as a glance at the economic history of our actual country. The liberals and Democrats of our enlightened cities, as Mr. Rich rightly says, have paid little or no attention to rural America “for more than half a century.” But it has received plenty of attention from the conservatives and Republicans and their client corporations. Rural America is a colony, and its economy is a colonial economy.
The business of America has been largely and without apology the plundering of rural America, from which everything of value — minerals, timber, farm animals, farm crops, and “labor” — has been taken at the lowest possible price. As apparently none of the enlightened ones has seen in flying over or bypassing on the interstate highways, its too-large fields are toxic and eroding, its streams and rivers poisoned, its forests mangled, its towns dying or dead along with their locally owned small businesses, its children leaving after high school and not coming back. Too many of the children are not working at anything, too many are transfixed by the various screens, too many are on drugs, too many are dying.
In a New York Times Op-Ed, A. Hope Jahren writes: “Farm policy hasn’t come up even once during a presidential debate for the past 16 years.” But the problem goes back much farther than that. It goes back at least to Eisenhower’s secretary of agriculture, Ezra Taft Benson, who instructed American farmers to “get big or get out.” In effect that set the “farm policy” until now, and thus sealed the fate of the decent, small, independent livelihoods of rural America. To that brutally stated economic determinism I know that President Clinton gave his assent, calling it “inevitable,” and so apparently did Mrs. Clinton. The rural small owners sentenced to dispensability in the 1950s are the grandparents of the “blue-collar workers” of rural America who now feel themselves to be under the same sentence, and with reason.
It is true that racism, sexism, and nostalgia have counted significantly in the history of rural America until this moment. But to attribute the approximate victory of Mr. Trump only to those “southern” faults, and to locate them only in rural America, is a driblet of self-righteous ignorance.
Wendell Berry Port Royal, Kentucky
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.
Almost 200 aid workers have been killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023. This is unconscionable.
If Donald Trump was not on the 2024 ballot, Joe Biden would not get my vote. His immoral inaction over Israel’s war against the Palestinian people is a bridge too far for me.
Biden plans to give Israel $18 billion more in weapons of mass destruction. Bernie Sanders is right, Israel should not receive a nickel more in U.S. aid as long as they are waging indiscriminate war against defenseless Palestinians and withholding/hindering humanitarian aid.
Studies show increased DNA tests reveal incest more prevalent than thought. Is anyone really surprised by this? I suspect the same can be said for an increase in people finding out that their biological father is not the man who says he is.
Hillary Clinton tells voters who are upset over Biden-Trump rematch to “get over yourself.” Sorry, Hillary I’m still pissed over your feckless 2016 presidential campaign. Taking pot shots at Democrats who want better candidates and principled policies is driving people away from the Party. You’ve been warned.
Major League Baseball ⚾️ has started. Hope springs eternal. Will this be the year my Cincinnati Reds make a deep playoff run? Please God . . . 🤣
Arizona Republicans said they wanted a total ban on abortion, and the Supreme Court gave them one. Now they are distancing themselves from the very thing they wanted. Why? They fear being voted out of office by angry women who are tired of men controlling their reproductive rights.
Don’t believe one word Trump says about abortion. He will literally say anything to get elected. I guarantee you, once elected he will give forced birthers exactly what they want.
Our kitten, Petey, the Ferret, is six months old. We are currently living through the cat equivalent of the terrible twos. Last night, Polly put leftover garlic bread in a bag and left it on the kitchen counter. Come morning, garlic bread was spread all over the kitchen/living room floor. The bag? Petey took it upstairs. Never a dull moment.
Wonder and awe for this atheist was seeing and experiencing the total eclipse on Monday. God is nothing compared to this.
Bonus: Polly started her new job last week at Sauder Manufacturing in Stryker, Ohio. She is working first shift in their sewing department. This was an inter-company move, so she kept all her benefits, albeit with a $160 a week play cut since she is no longer a manager. We survive, to live another day.
By Chauncey DeVega, a senior politics writer for Salon. His essays can also be found at Chaunceydevega.com.
One of the great errors of the American mainstream news media in the Age of Trump is an assumption that democracy is a settled matter in this country and that Republicans and Democrats are both equally invested in normal politics and consensus where the differences are just “partisan” and not existential. In the Age of Trump (and the years and decades that brought us here), that is manifestly not true. Public opinion polls and other research show that today’s Republican Party and larger “conservative” movement no longer support pluralistic multiracial democracy. Any members of the news media who conclude “everyone already knows” about Donald Trump’s violence so “why keep reminding them, it is old news,” is committing a number of gross errors in logic and inference.
Most Americans do not follow the news and current events closely. Moreover, political scientists and other experts have repeatedly shown that the mass public is ignorant and not highly sophisticated in terms of their political decision-making and knowledge. Even worse, public opinion polls now show that a larger percentage of Americans are possessed by collective amnesia and are actually yearning for a return to the horrible years when Donald Trump was in the White House.
This refusal to adapt and change for the better in service to real pro-democracy journalism and its dictate to pursue the real truth and not just what is comfortable and the “consensus”, is one of the many reasons why the mainstream news media has lost credibility with huge swaths of the American public.
Channeling Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels, Donald Trump and many of his MAGA followers have already targeted the American mainstream news media and its reporters and journalists as “enemies of the people.” To that end, Trump and his enforcers are threatening and planning (as publicly documented in Project 2025, Agenda 47, and elsewhere) how they are going to put “disloyal” and “non-complaint” (in their words “unpatriotic”) reporters, journalists, and other truth-tellers in the back of those pickup trucks right next to President Biden and their other enemies. Those threats are not metaphorical. They are literal.
When the autocrat, fascist, or some other enemy of democracy tells you what they are going to do you should always believe them. They are not kidding. Unfortunately, too many members of the American news media refuse to do so — and it will only be their undoing. They were repeatedly warned. Denial will not save them.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.
Spring is sneaking up on far northwest Ohio. Starlings, grackles, robins, and cowbirds have returned to our feeders.
Ohio State fired its men’s basketball coach a few weeks ago. Since then, the team has only lost one game. A win against Rutgers and a win or two in the Big Ten tournament and the team should make the NCAA tournament.
In 1979, I worked an entry level union job that paid $8 an hour with zero cost health insurance. If this job’s pay rate had kept up with inflation, it would be $33 an hour today. A similar job today starts at $15 with exorbitant insurance costs. Real wages have been flat or in decline for decades, especially when counting benefit cost increases.
It is clear that the U.S. Supreme Court is trying to keep Trump from being tried for his crimes. By delaying the trial date, the Court is making it impossible to hold Trump accountable for fomenting the 1-6 insurrection — yet another reminder that rich people are held to a different standard of justice than poor people.
It’s embarrassing to watch the Biden administration air drop food into Gaza. It’s hard to watch Israel neuter the United States, knowing we could get their immediate attention by cutting off aid and ending arms shipment — but we won’t.
The “undecided” vote in Michigan is a blaring warning siren to Biden and his handlers; one that says, “Put an end to the war crimes in Palestine, or come November, we will not vote for you.” So far, it seems Biden is deaf.
Abortion will be a deciding factor this November, and Republicans know it. That’s why these liars for Jesus are trying to distance themselves from the Alabama IVF ruling — pretending they don’t know IVF results in “murdered babies.”
A writer for the Toledo Blade warned Ohioans that buying cannabis in Michigan and taking it over the state line is a federal crime. I’ll be sure to watch for FBI and DEA agents the next time I break the law. I’m sure busting recreational marijuana users is their top priority.
It’s been thrilling to watch Iowa guard Kaitlin Clark play basketball this year. Today, she broke Pistol Pete Maravich’s all-time NCAA scoring record.
I heard a dumbass on MSNBC say that Mitch McConnell was an “old-time” Republican, not like the MAGA Republicans today. McConnell did more to harm our nation than all the Trump worshippers combined. Incalculable harm that left deep, lasting scars, that’s McConnell’s legacy.
Bonus: Donald Trump is a bigot and a racist, as his words at the border this weekend clearly show. Yes, the U.S. (and Mexico) has a border problem, but the men, women, and children trying to immigrate are, for the most part, decent people. Trump’s words are racist, no different from those uttered by other race baiters.
