Trump Thumps “God Bless the USA” Bibles printed in China

Thousands of copies of Donald Trump’s “God Bless the USA” Bible were printed in a country that the former president has repeatedly accused of stealing American jobs and engaging in unfair trade practices: China.

Global trade records reviewed by The Associated Press show a printing company in China’s eastern city of Hangzhou shipped close to 120,000 of the Bibles to the United States earlier this year.

The estimated value of the three separate shipments was $342,000, or less than $3 per Bible, according to databases that track exports and imports. The minimum price for the Trump-backed Bible is $59.99, putting the potential sales revenue at about $7 million.

The Trump Bible’s connection to China reveals a deep divide between the former president’s harsh anti-China rhetoric and his efforts to raise cash while campaigning.

The Trump campaign did not respond to emails and calls seeking comment.

In a March 26 video posted on his Truth Social platform, Trump announced a partnership with country singer Lee Greenwood to hawk the Bibles, inspired by Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” hit song.

In the video, Trump blended religion with his campaign message as he urged viewers to buy the Bible, which includes copies of the U.S. Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights and Pledge of Allegiance.

“This Bible is a reminder that the biggest thing we have to bring back in America, and to make America great again, is our religion,” Trump said.

Trump didn’t say where the “God Bless the USA” Bibles are printed, what they cost or how much he earns per sale. A version of the $59.99 Bible memorializes the July 13 assassination attempt on the former president in Pennsylvania. Trump’s name is stamped on the cover above the phrase, “The Day God Intervened.”

The Bibles are sold exclusively through a website that states it is not affiliated with any political campaign nor is it owned or controlled by Trump.

The website states that Trump’s name and image are used under a paid license from CIC Ventures, a company Trump reported owning in a financial disclosure released in August. CIC Ventures earned $300,000 in Bible sales royalties, according to the disclosure. It’s unclear if Trump has received additional payments.

AP received no response to questions sent to the Bible website and to a publicist for Greenwood.

For years, Trump has castigated Beijing as an obstacle to America’s economic success, slapping hefty tariffs on Chinese imports while president and threatening even more stringent measures if he’s elected again. He blamed China for the COVID-19 outbreak and recently suggested, without evidence, that Chinese immigrants are flooding the U.S. to build an “army” and attack America.

But Trump also has an eye on his personal finances. Pitching Bibles is one of a dizzying number of for-profit ventures he’s launched or promoted, including diamond-encrusted watches, sneakers, photo books, cryptocurrency and digital trading cards.

The web of enterprises has stoked conflict of interest concerns. Selling products at prices that exceed their value may be considered a campaign contribution, said Claire Finkelstein, founder of the nonpartisan Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law and a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

“You have to assume that everything that the individual does is being done as a candidate and so that any money that flows through to him benefits him as a candidate,” Finkelstein said. “Suppose Vladimir Putin were to buy a Trump watch. Is that a campaign finance violation? I would think so.”

There’s a potentially lucrative opportunity for Trump to sell 55,000 of the Bibles to Oklahoma after the state’s education department ordered public schools to incorporate Scripture into lessons. Oklahoma plans to buy Bibles that initially matched Trump’s edition: a King James Version that contains the U.S. founding documents. The request was revised Monday to allow the U.S. historical documents to be bound with the Bible or provided separately.

The first delivery of Trump Bibles was labeled “God Bless USA,” according to the information from the Panjiva and Import Genius databases. The other two were described as “Bibles.” All the books were shipped by New Ade Cultural Media, a printing company in Hangzhou, to Freedom Park Design, a company in Alabama that databases identified as the importer of the Bibles.

Tammy Tang, a sales representative for New Ade, told AP all three shipments were “God Bless the USA” Bibles. She said New Ade received the orders from Freedom Park Design via the WhatsApp messaging service. The books were printed on presses near the company’s office, she said.

Freedom Park Design was incorporated in Florida on March 1. An aspiring country singer named Jared Ashley is the company’s president. He also co-founded 16 Creative, a marketing firm that uses the same Gulf Shores address and processes online orders for branded merchandise.

Ashley hung up on a reporter who called to ask about the Bibles. Greenwood is a client of 16 Creative, according to the firm’s website. He launched the American-flag emblazoned Bible in 2021.

Religious scholars have denounced the merger of Scripture and government documents as a “toxic mix” that would fuel Christian nationalism, a movement that fuses American and Christian values, symbols and identity and seeks to privilege Christianity in public life. Other critics have called the Trump Bible blasphemous.

Tim Wildsmith, a Baptist minister who reviews Bibles on his YouTube channel, said he quickly noticed the signs of a cheaply made book when his “God Bless the USA” Bible arrived in the mail.

It had a faux leather cover, and words were jammed together on the pages, making it hard to read. He also found sticky pages that ripped when pulled apart, and there was no copyright page or information about who printed the Bible, or where.

“I was shocked by how poor the quality of it was,” Wildsmith said. “It says to me that it’s more about the love of money than it is the love of our country.”

Source: Richard Lardner and Dake Kang, authors with Associated Press. Available online PBS News October 9, 2024.

J.D. Vance: “Tim, I’m focused on the future.”

 

Pierre Poilievre on a Trip: “Canada. Our Home”

This video includes scenes from the US, Serbia, Slovenia, Ukraine, Venezuela, Indonesia, a park in London, and two Russian fighter jets.

Source: The Guardian online, Tuesday 20 August, 2024.

                                            

The Canadian preference for a “loaded silence”

At the very least, one thinks, we should now have acquired a little self-knowledge.  But self-knowledge does not come from study alone.  It comes from a knowledge of history, from self-examination and from open and vigorous debate, a candid exchange of opposing points of view.  Too often in this country we gravitate towards the superficial, and so polls that claim to take our measure can still surprise and dismay us.  We are suspicious of debate, anxious about the truths they might reveal.  We prefer regulation, the imposition of legal barriers, in our pursuit of peace, order and good government.  We prefer, then, a loaded silence.[1]

Neil Bissoondath, Selling Illusions (1994)

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[1] Neil Bissoondath, Selling Illusions: The Cult of Multiculturalism in Canada (Toronto: Penguin, 1994), p. 3.

Is she Indian, or is she Black? Was Trump confusing Kamala Harris with Nikki Haley?

 

President Biden’s exit is a classy exercise in the limits of power – and a return to older liberal principles

Liberalism and democracy happen to be two things which begin by having to do with each other, and end by having, so far as tendencies are concerned, meanings that are mutually antagonistic.  Democracy and Liberalism are two answers to two completely different questions.

Democracy answers this question – “who ought to exercise the public power?”  The answer it gives is – the exercise of public power belongs to the citizens as a body.

But this question does not touch on what should be the realm of public power.  It is solely concerned with determining to whom such power belongs.  Democracy proposes that we all rule, that is, that we are all sovereign in social acts.

Liberalism, on the other hand, answers this other question – “regardless of who exercises the public power, what should its limits be?”  The answer it gives is – “whether the public power is exercised by the autocrat or by the people, it cannot be absolute; the individual has rights which are over and above any interference by the state.” This, then, tends to limit the intervention of the public power.[1]

On this day, President Biden repudiated Hobbesian thinking (so incarnated by Trump, who is a slave to his passions), namely the famous refrain about the “general inclination of all mankind a perpetual and restless desire of power after power that ceaseth only in death.”[2]  Instead, by stepping down from the Democratic ticket, Biden demonstrated to America, if not the world, that all power should have its limits, at its heart an old principle of liberalism.

This stands in direct contrast to Trump’s desperate behaviour leading up to January 6^th and to the recent US Supreme Court decision in favour of presidential “absolute immunity” (which shamelessly was intended to protect Trump).  Apparently, six of nine justices had forgotten all legal precedent, plus the historical fact the Americans had fought a Revolution against a dreaded English King.  Hidden in the revolutionary slogan “No taxation without representation” was John Locke’s case for “the Consent of the People.”[3]  All this, of late, has been conveniently shoved aside by the Republicans (so-called), along with Lord Acton’s forgotten maxim: “Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

By stepping down, Biden is also making an implicit case for term limits for justices on the Supreme Court.  He demonstrates humility and an absence of entitlement, qualities which do not seem so very apparent elsewhere, for example, in the many ethical lapses at that Court.  And Biden appears to have learned from Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s example. Her fatal misjudgment not to step down when she was nudged to do so during Obama’s first term of office contributed in many ways to the present-day crises.

On the broader scale, Biden’s exit from the Democratic race speaks volumes about American democracy, once again a beacon, which thrives on competition. How will the autocrats of the world censor Biden’s grace?  The American spirit of innovation? Biden has publicly acknowledged limits on his own strength, and on the authority of the presidency, which should stand apart from his remarkable sense of moderation.[4]  On the other hand, President Xi had authorized a change in China’s constitution to make his third term possible.  Putin is approaching Stalin’s length of term in power.  Lukashenko has subjected the people of Belarus to 30 years in his grip.  Clearly there is only one person (or maybe two, now) unfit for office in America: Donald Trump and his running mate, J.D. Vance.

 

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[1] José Ortega y Gasset, Invertebrate Spain, tr. Mildred Adams (London: Allen & Unwin, 1937), pp. 125,126.

[2] Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. A.P. Martinich (Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press, 2002), p. 75. [Part I, Chapter XI, Section 2]

[3] Thomas G. West, “Forward” in Algernon Sidney, Discourses Concerning Government, ed. Thomas G. West (Carmel, Indiana: Liberty Fund, 1996), p. xxvi.  See also John Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration, ed. and intro. by Mark Goldie (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2010), p. 13.

[4] John of Salisbury, Policraticus, ed., Cary J. Needham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 206.

When Parliament was part-time

Hostile critics of Canada’s democracy in the past might be missing a giant clue to our nation’s political shortcomings in days of old.  The fact is, our parliamentarians did not receive an annual salary until beginning in 1953.  For almost a century following Confederation, they were paid sessionally, and today – even though they now receive a monthly salary - it is still known as a “sessional indemnity.”  To be sure, this means that the job of representation in the House of Commons was long skewed to those who could afford to run for office, no mean feat in a country as large as Canada.

Here, for the benefit of readers, is a more detailed History of Remuneration as put out by the Government of Canada:

The reason I sought public office was to give something back to the community. Yet the work of parliamentarians, who enter public life at great cost to their professional and private lives, is rarely accepted for what it is, and many times is seen in a negative light.[1]

Practices surrounding compensation for Members of Parliament for their service to Canada’s parliamentary business have varied throughout history. Introduction of the sessional indemnity in 1867 was designed to compensate these part-time members for losses incurred while they were in Ottawa, away from their homes and ordinary way of earning a living. The idea of membership in the House of Commons being a parttime job declined as the length of parliamentary sessions increased, and as the sessions lengthened and members’ responsibilities grew, sessional indemnities rose as well. A pension plan for members was established in 1952, and by 1953, the job was well on the way to being considered a full-time occupation: the amount of the indemnity no longer depended on the length of a session, and members started to receive an annual salary, paid monthly.

 Over the years, amendments to the Members’ Indemnity Act reflected this change in the nature and scope of parliamentary business. Today’s indemnities and allowances are the result of 24 successive amendments to the Members’ Indemnity Act and its successor statutes.

 Evolution of the Sessional Indemnity

In 1867, parliamentary business required each member of the House of Commons and the Senate to sacrifice between three and five weeks each year to tend to the nation’s needs (see Appendix, Duration of Sessions of Parliament). For this service to their country, the Members’ Indemnity Act of 1867 provided a sessional indemnity of $600 for each session that extended beyond 30 days. This indemnity was payable at an interim daily rate of $4. Any of the $600 that remained unpaid at the daily rate was paid at the end of the session. For sessions of 30 days or less, each member of the Senate and the House of Commons received a per diem allowance of $6. This was not considered a salary but was intended to compensate for lost income from private-sector employment or a profession.

In 1873 the sessional indemnity was increased to $1,000, and the daily rate for sessions of 30 days or less was revised to $10. In 1886, the Members’ Indemnity Act was incorporated into the Senate and House of Commons Act. At that time, the interim daily rate for sessions extending beyond 30 days was raised to $7. According to the preamble to the act, the indemnity was raised to reflect longer sessions and increases in the cost of living.

The sessional indemnity was raised to $1,500 in 1901, but the daily rate for sessions hat did not extend beyond 30 days remained at $10.

In 1905, the maximum sessional indemnity was adjusted to $2,500. The interim daily rate for sessions that extended beyond 30 was increased to $10, and the daily rate for sessions lasting not more than 30 days was increased to $20.

In 1920, the sessional allowance was adjusted to $4,000 and the minimum duration for which a sessional indemnity was payable was extended from 30 to 50 days. The per diem rate for sessions not extending beyond 50 days was raised to $50.

The minimum duration was increased again in 1923, from 50 to 65 days. The interim daily rate for sessions lasting more than 65 days was raised to $20, but the per diem rate for sessions not extending 65 days remained at $25.

In 1945, a new allowance was introduced: members of the House of Commons and the Senate received an allowance of $2,000 for expenses incidental to the discharge of their duties as members. The allowance was payable at the end of the calendar year and was subject to deductions in respect of non-attendance at sittings. The allowance was taxable in the case of ministers of the Crown, senators, and the leader of the opposition in the House of Commons, but not in the case of members of the House of Commons.

The sessional basis for remuneration was discontinued in 1953, to be replaced by annual remuneration, although the name did not change. A sessional indemnity of $8,000 per year was payable in monthly installments on the last day of each month, while the incidental expense allowance of $2,000 per year, established in 1945, was made payable quarterly.

In 1963, the sessional indemnity was increased to $12,000, the incidental expense allowance was raised to $6,000 for members of the House of Commons, and the tax exemption on the expense allowance was extended to members of both chambers.

The sessional indemnity was raised again in 1971, to $18,000, and the incidental expense allowance rose to $8,000. This increase was attributable mainly to the recommendations of the Advisory Committee to Review Members’ Allowances, appointed by the government in 1970. The committee reviewed the financial arrangements for senators and members of the House of Commons, including both the sessional indemnity and the incidental expense allowances, and recommended the changes it considered appropriate.

Between 1974 and 1991, the sessional indemnity and the incidental expense allowance were raised on January 1 each year (or, on two occasions, twice in a year on the recommendation of a commission appointed to review the allowances).

Increases were suspended for two years beginning in 1975 and, as explained earlier, allowances have been frozen since 1991

Source: Supporting Democracy, Vol. 2. Research Paper 2 (Ottawa: Minister of Government Works and Public Services, 1998), pp. 32,33.

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[1] Speech by the Honourable Gilbert Parent, Speaker of the House of Commons, to the Canadian Club of Calgary, 19 January 1996.