THIS & THAT #11

The World Is Watching Cleveland

But Not for an NBA Championship

The Republican National Convention opens on July 18 in Cleveland, Ohio, and a June Pew Research Center poll found that nearly four-fifths of white evangelical voters plan to cast their ballots for Trump “despite his multiple marriages, lack of piety and inconsistency on the issues they care about most.”

White evangelicals make up about one-fifth of all registered voters and are a very important and coveted bloc who can turn out the vote through their churches and social networks.

The poll also revealed that Roman Catholics favored Clinton over Trump by seventeen percentage points, helped along by Hispanic Catholics who supported Clinton over Trump by a huge 77 to 16 margin.

Black Protestants favored Clinton, while white mainline Protestants were for Trump over Clinton, 50 to 39 percent.

Don’t Count Me In

In a nation of an estimated 324,232,589 American citizens, the largest religious groups were Christians that comprise 70.8% of that population. Evangelical Protestants make up 25.4%, Mainline Protestants 14.7%, and Historically Black Protestants total 6.5%. Among the remaining Christian groups are Catholics at 20.8%, followed by Mormons, Orthodox Christians, Jehovah’s Witness, and Other Christian groups.

Don’t Count Me Out

The survey did not show results for members of minority religious groups, like Buddhists, Hindus, Jews and Muslims, “because there were not enough of them in the poll.” It’s still thought by some that the United States is a Christian Nation.

A smaller numbers of groups fall under the broad category of Non-Christian Faiths, which comprise 5.9% of the religious total. Jews lead at 1.9%, followed by Muslims (0.9%), Buddhists and Hindus at 0.7%, Other World religions and Other Faiths.

Making up the second largest group are those who checked off “None” at 22.8%, including “Nothing In Particular” at 15%, Atheists, Agnostics, and the very honest who checked off “Don’t Know.”

Americans know very little Americans about the Baha’i Faith, which has a beautiful Temple in Haifa, Israel, as well as about Rastafarianism, Jainism or Taoism.

Whose Side Are They On?

Speaking of the Republican Convention, which we were some nine paragraphs ago, there are eighteen GOP Senators who won’t be able to make it, and some of the reasons why seem a bit dubious. Remember, our hardly working, do-very-little elected Congress and Senate people, just went on a seven-week summer vacation.

Sen. John McCain of Arizona will be visiting his state’s Grand Canyon, to be sure that it is still there. Arizona’s other Senator Jeff Flake, was quoted as saying, “I’ve got to mow my lawn.” Senator Steve Dalnes of Montana said, ”I’ll have my fly rod in my hand with my wife in Montana.”

Honesty Is the Best Policy

A spokesman for Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska said, “Senator Sasse will not be attending the convention and will instead take his kids to watch some dumpster fires across the state, all of which enjoy more popularity that the current front runners.”

Sasse has my vote if he ever runs for office in California.

Supremely Powerful, Wearing Black Robes

There are nine Supreme Court judges elected by no one, and appointed by a President with the hope that their appointee would match the President’s ideological leanings.

The current justices, bedecked in their black robes, are noted in the next paragraph along with their date of appointment, and the President who may have thought that they were qualified. At times, of course, the President himself may not have been qualified for his position.

Anthony Kennedy (Reagan, Feb.1988) Antonin Scalia (Reagan, Sept. 1988), Clarence Thomas (G.H.W. Bush, Oct. 1991), Ruth Bader Ginsberg (Clinton, Aug. 1993), Stephen Breyer (Clinton, Aug. 1994), John Roberts (G. W. Bush, 2005), Samuel Alito (G.W.Bush, Jan. 2006), Sonia Sotomayor (Obama, Aug. 2009), and Elena Kagan (Obama, Aug. 2010).

While those supreme beings are supposed to leave their prejudices and biases behind when they review a case, you have to wonder if this is so in many decisions.

For example, in April 2010, in a 5-to-4 decision, the Supremes struck down the limit on the total amount of money wealthy donors can contribute to candidates and political committees. A true victory for all Americans named David and Charles Koch, or Sheldon Adelson. It probably shouldn’t be too difficult to figure out which five Republican President’s appointees were the deciding votes.

In June 2013, they effectively struck down the core of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by another 5-to-4 vote, freeing nine states, mostly in the South, to change their election laws without advance federal approval. Can you name the four who opposed this ruling?

However, now in 2015, there was finally a unanimous 9-to--0 vote on an important case that will help determine the fate of our nation.  It will help the populace, or politicians, decide who will run in 2016 and who will win the Presidential election. It will also help to determine a minority’s rights when stopped by Caucasian police officers for littering, and how the average American will be able to get interest rates above 0.85% on their savings, in a promised robust economy.

Oh yes, that 2015 case. The Supreme Court ruled that a Muslim prison inmate in Arkansas could grow a short beard for religious reasons.

Under Those Black Robes

When the nine justices, or at least the five appointed by Republican presidents, sit in a dark room trying to determine if a book or a movie is pornographic or not, have you ever wondered what’s happening while they are wearing black robes?