President Trump’s Senior Trade Advisor, Peter Navarro, called BMW a “scam” as President Trump threatens John Deere with 200 percent tariffs.
In today’s blog, we stand with U.S. farmers, farm equipment manufacturers, and car makers. People and businesses need to hear, “We believe in you! We want more of what you have to offer!” Threats, fear, and innuendo destabilize businesses and our economy.
Easy to Tear Down but Hard to Build Up
America Comes in Many Colors
Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.
There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death.
The appetite of laborers works for them; their hunger drives them on.
A scoundrel plots evil, and on their lips it is like a scorching fire.
A perverse person stirs up conflict, and a gossip separates close friends.
Some folks are born made to wave the flag Hoo, they’re red, white and blue And when the band plays “Hail to the chief” Ooh, they point the cannon at you, Lord
It ain’t me, it ain’t me I ain’t no senator’s son, son It ain’t me, it ain’t me I ain’t no fortunate one, no
PEN America has documented nearly 16,000 book bans in public schools nationwide since 2021, a number not seen since the Red Scare McCarthy era of the 1950s. This censorship is being mobilized by conservative groups— and has spread to nearly every state— and predominantly targets books about race and racism or individuals of color and also books on LGBTQ+ topics as well those for older readers that have sexual references or discuss sexual violence.
In the 2023-2024 school year, PEN America found more than 10,000 book bans affecting more than 4,000 unique titles, with about 45% of the bans occurring in Florida and 36% in Iowa. The most banned books in the 2023-2024 school year, according to the PEN America Index of School Book Bans, include bestselling novelist Jodi Picoult’s Nineteen Minutes, about the moments leading up to a school shooting, and John Green’s Looking for Alaska. The list also includes The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood, and The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini.
Grandpa, tell me ’bout the good old days Sometimes it feels like this world’s gone crazy Grandpa, take me back to yesterday When the line between right and wrong Didn’t seem so hazy
-The Judds
“Missing Grandma and Peace of Mind”
“The Vault for Broken Promises”
“The Glory That Once Was America”
“Grandma Told Him, ‘Store Up Treasures in Heaven'”
When I resigned my third church as senior pastor, I ventured into the insurance world and first sold insurance and variable products before working a career as an insurance adjuster between ministries. In the 1990’s I was hired by a nationally known life insurance/securities company and teamed with an experienced agent. I was shocked to see every hallway in the office was crammed full of boxes of papers and was ordered place any paper I used for notes or writing into the discovery box. I asked my trainer, “What’s up with the boxes?”
He explained, “There was a lawsuit due to insurance sales people who churned customers out of solid existing policies into variable annuities by promising customers that they could invest in their variable annuities and, after a period of time, they would not have to pay any premiums using the “vanishing premium fraud that dividends will pay their premiums.” When dividends did not pay the premiums, the policies were canceled and the customers lost their money. So, my trainer and I drove to the homes of former defrauded customers and explained their variable annuities were “back in force,” which gave us an opportunity to try to sell them additional product. Suffice it to say, these customers were none too eager to invest again in what we were selling.
Both insurance and church work are based on “utmost good faith,” considering that one bases its faith on a contract and the other on the Bible. Utmost good faith means, “You are only as good as your word.” The old farmer’s “handshake deal” represents the gold standard that you can stand on the promise. This is different from basing a contract on what you can sneak by. While lying as a business practice has spread like measles to the highest offices of our land, may we return to that utmost good faith dealing that will not require us one day to right the wrongs that festered due to our own deceptions.
Pastor Jim
19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy,[c] your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eyes are unhealthy,[d] your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
24 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
White House orders that all coffee plants be uprooted from Columbia and shipped to Washington. Tariff Bean Czar, Juan Valdez, appointed to “Make America Jittery Again!”
14 “You shall not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether one of your brethren or one of the aliens who is in your land within your gates. 15 Each day you shall give him his wages, and not let the sun go down on it, for he is poor and has set his heart on it; lest he cry out against you to the Lord, and it be sin to you. -Deuteronomy 24:14-15
There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.
"Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have stored up treasure in the last days." - James 5:3
Chicken Dance Polka declared Trump’s Liberation Day song due to price of tariff eggs through the roof and the crazy dance on Wall Street.
Trump announced his next term will reign 3,000 years. “Liberation Day” from nasty democracy. “And Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he said, ‘I couldn’t care less. Let them eat eggs!'”
The White House taps a new “Tariffs Czar”! As markets crash, critics call him “The Mad Hatter”!
Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.
-The White Queen to Alice in Alice Through the Looking-Glass
White House deploys its expert to Wall Street to force tariff medicine fix of stock market.
The Great Depression Started 1929, fueled by tariff led collapse of stock markets.
They believed it was easier to convince us of the lie than to tell us the truth. - Pastor Jim
Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy. -Proverbs 31:8-9
Latest White House Executive Order demands that all zoos replace their black-and-white Pandas with all-white “DEI Compliant Pandas.” Noncompliant Pandas will be crated and shipped to a shelter in El Salvador.
