Trump is a dick but the claim that the founders were deists or even less religious got debunked years ago.

#4 | Posted by tor at 2026-06-29 05:27 PM

Being a Deist did not mean that you were 'less religious', it's just that while they believed in God, they didn't accept the idea that man and God interacted with each other. In order words, they didn't accept the idea that Jesus was the son of God or that he took human form and lived among the people in the New Testament. Okay, that made them non-Christian, but then there are a lot of people on this planet who aren't Christians.

But getting back to the basic tenants of Deism, it's like Issac Newton speculating on the concept of God being like a 'clock maker', who created the universe, 'wound it up' and then set it in motion while he sat back and watched how it progressed.

OCU

And they excluded Deists and Unitarians, which is ironic since these beliefs played a major role during the founding of America. Several of the Founding Father's were Deists including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine. Also four presidents were Unitarians, including John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Millard Fillmore and William Howard Taft. And Adlai Stevenson II, who ran twice as the Democratic presidential candidate against Eisenhower, was a Unitarian.

OCU

Retreating to the top of a hill with no water and no cover wasn't real bright.

#14 | Posted by morris at 2026-06-27 10:07 AM

To say nothing of dividing your forces and ignoring your intelligence reports.

OCU

If you ever get a chance, please go and visit the Little Bighorn battlefield site. I've stopped there several times over the years and it always makes an impression as you see exactly what happened via the way that the National Park Service has preserved the site. Also, adjoining the site is a National Cemetery, which in itself is worth the visit. And from what I understand, many Native Americans who have served in the various branches of the US military, that this is a desirable place for where they wish to be interned when their time comes, as a way of being at rest with their ancestors who lost their lives on that fateful day 150 years ago.

Beside, when I was in Army officers school, when taking a class in tactics and strategies, this battle was one of the examples that were used to make the point about what not to do.

OCU

Note that my brother-in-law lives in Caracas (he's Venezuelan). After my sister married him (they met in college here in the US) she lived there for over forty-years, returning permanently, with her son and his family, about eight years ago. My brother-in-law traveled back and forth when he could (the last time we saw him was three-years ago), however, when my sister passed two years ago, he returned to Caracas and has not been back since, even though his son (my nephew) and his family are living in Michigan.

Anyway, I texted my nephew last night to see how his father was and he texted back that he was okay. Luckily, he was outside of his penthouse apartment when the quake struck and while there was only a little damage when he was allowed back in, just a broken window and dishes and pictures on the floor and the frig half way across the kitchen, he said he was lucky. However, a building just a couple of blocks away almost completely collapsed. My nephew also said that his aunt and his wife's family were also okay as well as some of his friends from school and such that he was able to contact. He said he's got a few more to follow-up with today, but so far no one in his or his wife's family were harmed.

OCU

Have you ever been on a religious retreat before? Many churches, of all denominations, hold weekend retreats, often for men or women and occasionally co-ed. It's an opportunity to pray and meditate, and come closer to God and Jesus. It's also an opportunity to make new friends, renew old friendships, and to share our stories and experiences. You should try it some time. I've been on close to a dozen in the last 30 years or so. So has my wife.

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I just learned something interesting yesterday.

It seems that the so-called 'American Flag Blue' paint used on the Reflecting Pool wasn't actually paint, nor was it what they normally paint swimming pools with. It was a urethane material that was normally used to line the bed of pickup trucks and such, what's known as a spray-on 'bed-liner', which is traditionally applied to smooth metallic surfaces which already had a coat of paint. What caught my attention was that I heard a reporter remark that the material used came from a company named 'Rhino Linings'.

Well as soon as I heard that I knew exactly where it came from, a company just north of San Diego. But that's not all. I know the CEO of the company. In fact, he and his wife are very active members of our church. He and I were on the church's building committee together. We've participated in at least two weekend men's retreats together. And his wife and my wife worked for years together helping organize an annual women's event which was held at the church. We've been to at least two or three events that they hosted at their house, which is only about a mile from where we live.

I first met him over 30 years ago when he was still the CEO of Mitsubishi of North America (their office building was less than a mile from ours). He left there about 25 years ago and went to work for Rhino Linings Corporation, eventually replacing the founder of the company, first as president and then eventually at the CEO (the founder, a chemist, wanted to spend more of his time doing R&D).

Now, I have no idea if the company played any role in actually applying the 'paint' on the floor of the Reflecting Pool. It's quite possible that all they did was sell the contractor, who actually did the job, the material that they used.

Now Rhino Linings makes several different products, mostly used in industrial applications, including things like spray on urethane foam insulation, sound deadening material, and other industrial coatings. But their original product and the one that you hear about the most, is the spray-on trunk bed liner, as there are many places which offers that service using their products (they used to do that themselves, but now they license their process and products to private retailers).

We see him and his wife almost every Sunday, but I suspect that I'll not mention this to him as I wouldn't want to put him on the spot as we do have a cordial and spiritual relationship that we've enjoyed for over 30 years.

But as they say, it's a small world...

OCU

And then the Agriculture Secretary had the audacity for trying to blame it on the Biden administration.

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Can you imagine what the Right wing media would be saying about now if this had been someone like Hunter Biden, or a family member of some high ranking Democrat, exchanging these alleged text messages.

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"Mail voting in the US: Data points to very low fraud and significant benefits to voters"

#5 | Posted by Corky at 2026-06-15 10:40 AM

That alone makes it dangerous to Republicans...

OCU

Pres Trump more likely just wants to replace the statue of Lincoln with one of him, everything else is an excuse ...

#1 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-06-04 07:19 PM

And of course, it would be covered in 23+ carat Gold leaf...

OCU

Only the best...

OCU

Now it's meaningless as Trump would never sign such a bill, but it does show that his hold the Republicans in Congress is being diminished. They're coming to the realization that Trump, for all intents and purposes, is already a 'lame-duck' president, and it's only going to get more obvious as we approach the midterms if it continues to look like the Democrats will at least win back the House, if not the Senate as well.

OCU

Can you imagine the outrage if it had been revealed that during the Obama or Biden administrations, that one of the liberal Justices had a child, or a close relative, secretly working in the general counsel's office of one of the executive branch's Cabinet departments which had, or was anticipating in having, their polices or actives being questioned as part of a case being heard before the Court.

OCU

Yes, a friend of ours has been evacuated and she's moved into our guest bedroom until further notice. We don't really mind as she's sort of like the daughter that we never had (she's a year older than our oldest son). When we were back in Michigan, my wife worked with Kellie's mother and when we moved back to California in 1987, she had just graduated from high school and she wanted to get away from her parents and so she came back with us. She lived with us for about five months before getting a job and a place to live.

She said that they were told to plan to find a place where she could spend up to a week or more. Like I said, we enjoy her company so it won't be an issue with us, however, in a bit over two weeks our oldest son, his wife and two of his daughters, will be visiting us, so we hope that things are cleared-up by then as we only have two 'spare' bedrooms.

OCU

I wonder if Sullivan's aware of how ironic this is?

OCU

Yes, and all of those people were paid actors, like the ones standing on the mezzanine of Trump Tower in 2015, wearing Trump T-shirts, when Trump and Melania descended the gold escalator before he announced his candidacy for president. And in his case, they actually were actors who had responded to a 'casting call' and were paid $50 each to wave and cheer for the cameras as Trump was going down the escalator.

OCU

And here we have Trump, going all out to reward 'victims' of past president's 'weaponization' of various government agencies, while we sit and watch his government agencies weaponize their actions toward Americans. Will the next president demand that he be given an 'anti-weaponization' fund so that he can right all of the wrongs done by the Trump administration? I suspect that someone, somewhere, is keeping track.

OCU

And if my spouse was stricken with a life threatening disease, I wouldn't wait over five weeks to quit my job before I could spend full time with them.

OCU

And it seems that many of the these people from South Africa have been disappointed after their arrival. For one thing, they apparently felt that they had been promised a significant amount of cash when they arrived. Instead, they were informed that that the nominal benefit available to refugees was limited to no more than $2,450 per person, and even then most of that was in the from of credits to help cover housing, furniture, food and transportation supplied by various organizations who were assisting the South African families in getting settled.

OCU

Everyone should keep in mind that Trump, and many of his people, have been having issues with Gabbard ever since both Venezuela and the war with Iran, over her long term opposition to foreign involvement, particularly when it came to forcing regime change.

OCU

Many from the first batch he brought over ended up going home from what I read. The US was too violent for them.

#3 | Posted by qcp at 2026-05-21 01:08 PM

And it didn't help when they learned that they couldn't pay 'slave' wages for nannies and housekeepers like they were able to do back on South Africa.

OCU

What could possibly go wrong...

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How is this not a 'Get Out of Jail Free' card? This would insulate not only Donald Trump, but all members of the Trump family as well as all of their various business endeavors, from ever being audited nor prosecuted even if evidence were to be found that they've committed tax fraud.

And this will set a horrible precedent. What's to stop future presidents from simply suing the government over some perceived grievance and then ordering their DOJ to make a deal which benefits themselves and those close to them, all at the expense of the taxpayers?

OCU

It's also been reported that the DOJ may also be asking the IRS, as part of Trump's settlement with the agency, that neither he nor any of his family members, as well as any of the business entities, will ever be subject to an IRS audit in the future, which would just invite them to commit all kinds of tax fraud and that there would be nothing that anyone could do about it.

OCU