Inside-Out Voices

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Back in the day parents, teachers, and caretakers would warn or advise their kinfolk (typically children) to “use your inside voice” when they were becoming too loud.

Even outside.

Described as a modulated, relatively calm voice considered polite and socially appropriate when speaking indoors (at home, in school, or at the office), an inside voice is opposed to an outside voice: the latter a strong, elevated voice considered acceptable when speaking outdoors to be heard above a crowd or other background sounds.

Inside or out, an inside voice means that you’re thinking about the eardrums of others and that you know how to communicate without hollering.

Such is not the case in Spain.

Spain is loud.

People — especially women — tend to use their outdoor voices everywhere and all the time. Especially in the streets and right outside their front doors. That’s where they socialize. The streets are their living rooms, reception areas to interact and communicate.

Perhaps that’s because, for the most part, houses in Spain (and Portugal) were built with spaces too small to accommodate gatherings and inside voices. So people, their families, and neighbors congregate in the street, speaking up without realizing how loud is their talk.

My grandmother looked down on the street (although she also disapproved of jeans and bell bottoms, popular at the time). She came from money, married into more, and lived in a 12-room apartment on the fourth floor of Madrid’s prestigious Salamanca barrio (neighborhood). There was plenty of room for guests to gather in one of her several sitting rooms. “Sólo los Fulanos de tal se quedan por las calles” (Only nondescripts stay out on the streets), she would say.

Of course, those were the days of Francisco Franco, “caudillo de España por la gracia de Dios” (leader of Spain by the grace of God), according to the coins, when one never used outside voices while walking the streets patrolled by stern faced guardia civil with firearms.

So, maybe using outside voices is a social thing learned from childhood: to be heard over one’s male siblings and family members, girls tend to lift up their voices. It could be, too, that screaming and screeching are learned and reinforced on unsupervised toddlers when they’re ignored rather than disciplined for running amok and yelling at the top of their lungs in supermarkets and other public places, where inside voices are expected.

Spain is loud, a country of outside voices and sounds.

Facing us on the same street is a family comprising a middle-aged woman, her elderly mother, a twenty-something young man without work and living at home, and two very young grandchildren. A husband appears periodically. From early morning until what we consider late at night (10:00 pm), they are in their doorway using loud, outside voices.

And it’s not only them.

Some women, especially, terrify our dogs with their loud, high-pitched voices. Men, too, project their bass and baritone tenors decibels beyond normal hearing levels. Sometimes, we’re not certain whether they’re having a heated argument or just an everyday discussion … so we mind our business and don’t get involved. Due to the often industrial nature of their workplaces, men can be heard using outside voices inside.

Why do the Spanish shout when talking?

Sometimes, people may shout to be heard. This is not necessarily rude but indicates full engagement with the discussion. One often hears Spaniards call out and even heckle during speaking engagements and performances. This is expected to be taken in jest.

“I live in Madrid and share a flat with a few Spaniards,” says Sofía. “It depends on the crowd, to be honest, but I found that Spanish girls in particular tend to get pretty loud, even for me (Italian f). I used to live in Germany before moving to Spain and I am not surprised to find the difference in decibels a bit jarring.”

Nuno, a Spaniard, responds: “We love being loud. Loud means friends. Loud means fun. Loud means interesting. Loud means fiesta. There’s nothing worse than a silent bar.”

Spain is a loud country.

The bread man leans too long on his horn during his morning runs up and down the streets. Machismo throttling of motorcycles going the wrong way on one-way streets is deafening, as if the whine of the loudest motors denotes riders with the biggest cojones (or vice-versa). The vendors at the outdoor market bark as part of their sales routine. Even the rumbling of cars with diesel engines momentarily stopped albeit beating and belching — along with their fumes — are enough to disturb the peace. Heck, there’s even slang in Spanish (ruidoso/a) or (escandaloso/a) to describe the noise. Language textbooks make note of Spain’s noise:

• Mike didn’t like going to the city because it was always so noisy.
A Miguel no le gustaba ir al centro porque siempre era muy ruidosa.

• María was happy when school started because the noisy children were gone for a while.
María estaba contenta cuando empezaron las clases porque los niños ruidosos se irían por un rato.

Excessive noise seriously harms human health and interferes with people’s daily activities at school, at work, at home and during leisure time. It can disturb sleep, cause cardiovascular and psychophysiological effects, reduce performance, and provoke annoyance responses and changes in social behavior. According to research by the American College of Cardiology, noise pollution is linked to an increase in cardiovascular problems. The stress of constant noise results in the more frequent release of cortisol — the infamous stress hormone — which damages blood vessels.

Noise has emerged as a leading environmental nuisance in the WHO European Region, and the public complains about excessive noise more and more often.

The noise levels in Spain are generally a little higher than one might find in other countries. In fact, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), the only country higher on the decibel tables worldwide is Japan.

No matter where or when, Spain is loud.

“It doesn’t matter what time it is, or what type of environment. I have been having breakfast at 8:00 am in a restaurant with Brits and Swedes and there is conversation. I can make out every word they say from across the room … until one Spanish family arrives,” shares a Brit. “They arrive at the table with their speaker phones on because, apparently, they think I need to hear both sides of their loud conversation. And they ignore their children to the point that the kids are screaming for attention. When they do decide to acknowledge the kids, they scream even louder.”

Attempting to sound a bit more diplomatic, I’ve often said that the Portuguese evidence more soul, while the Spaniards are more spirited.

Nonetheless, much as I have been tempted to (nicely) ask a Spaniard to speak more softly, I remind myself that I am an expat for a time in their country. I have no right to intrude on their culture … or communication modus operandi, for that matter.

Yet, even foreigners are entitled to a fair share of accommodation and hospitality …

Last night, I was awakened after midnight by the voices of a man, his young son, and their dog cavorting in the street in front of our house. The ruckus continued for more than half an hour, awakening my dogs who began barking. Finally, I went to the window and said, “Es medianoche. Cállense, por favor” (It’s midnight. Please be quiet.).

And, no, I didn’t use my inside voice.

Bruce Joffe is publisher and creative director of Portugal Living Magazine.

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Hiding in Plain Sight

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How artificial intelligence quietly took up residence in our inboxes, cars, cameras, bank accounts, and living rooms—long before most of us started worrying about it

Bruce H. Joffe*

At 7:03 on a weekday morning, a man in Lisbon reaches for his phone before he’s fully awake.

He checks his email first. A few messages sit in the inbox; dozens more have been silently diverted elsewhere—junk mail, phishing attempts, marketing blasts, the digital equivalent of flyers stuffed under a windshield wiper. He glances at the weather. He asks for directions to an appointment across town and is told to avoid one route because traffic is building near the river. He dictates a quick text instead of typing it. On the way out the door, his phone suggests the podcast he usually plays on Wednesdays. Later, his bank pings him to confirm a purchase that doesn’t fit his normal spending pattern. That evening, a streaming service serves up a crime series eerily calibrated to his taste, while a security camera at home decides the movement on the front step is a package, not a person.

None of these moments feels especially futuristic. None would make a compelling movie scene. There are no humanoid robots, no glowing red eyes, no disembodied machine voice announcing that civilization has entered a new era. There is only the filtered inbox, the optimized route, the recommended song, the fraud alert, the sharpened photograph, the personalized feed.

Yet artificial intelligence is omnipresent and omniscient in nearly every one of those moments.

Is it omnipotent, too? And are these qualities of AI good things or bad?

That’s the oddity of AI in public life. For years, the technology has been sold to us in two contradictory ways. On one hand, it has been framed as an impending revolution, always just over the horizon, promising either astonishing prosperity or social collapse. On the other, it already has seeped so deeply into ordinary routines that much of it no longer registers as something extraordinary. We talk about AI as though it is arriving tomorrow, even as it has quietly spent the last decade rearranging the texture of daily life.

The result is a strange kind of collective misrecognition. Ask people where AI figures in their lives and many will point to chatbots, image generators, or the latest software capable of imitating human prose, voice, and imagery. Those are the visible, headline-grabbing forms of AI—the kind that inspire awe, panic, or breathless TED Talk predictions. But the more consequential story may be the less theatrical one: AI as a background infrastructure, embedded in the systems that sort, rank, predict, detect, recommend, translate, and optimize.

In that sense, artificial intelligence has become less like a robot and more like plumbing. It sits behind the walls of digital life, unseen but constantly at work, shaping what we see, where we go, what we buy, how we travel, whom we hear from (and don’t), and which risks get flagged before they become crises.

AI is not one single thing. It is a sprawling collection of systems making assumed judgments on our behalf—some trivial, some useful, some manipulative, some indispensable.

To understand how thoroughly AI has become the substance of ordinary life, it helps to stop thinking of it as a master machine and start considering the kinds of work it performs every day. Increasingly, that work falls into four broad categories: predicting what we want, watching for what might go wrong, curating what we see, and making small decisions on our behalf.

In other words, we need to become adept at connecting the dots.

The Prediction Conglomerate

One of AI’s most pervasive talents is prediction—not in the mystical sense of foretelling the future, but in the more mundane, commercially useful sense of guessing what is likely to happen next: What song will you want to hear? What route will get you home fastest? Which word are you trying to type? Which movie are you most likely to watch when you’re too tired to choose carefully? How much money is in your bank account at this moment? Who has taken money out and put money in? What’s the correct spelling of that word you’re wrestling with in Spanish?

Recommendation systems are perhaps the clearest example of AI’s predictive abilities.

Streaming platforms like Netflix, Spotify, and YouTube don’t merely store content; they study behavior. They track what users click, skip, replay, abandon, and binge, then use those patterns to forecast what will keep a person engaged for one more song, one more episode, one more hour. In practice, this means that entertainment platforms are no longer passive libraries. They are active editors of our leisure, arranging choices in ways designed to feel intuitive, personalized, and a little uncanny.

That can be very dangerous and illegal. Take the case of social media, which operates on the same premise. Remember the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica scandal which involved the unauthorized harvesting of personal data from an estimated 87 million Facebook users to micro-target voters during the 2016 U.S. presidential election? The personal data was used to build psychological profiles to influence voters in favor of political campaigns, most notably those of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.

Following global outrage and an undercover investigation exposing corrupt practices by CEO Alexander Nix, Cambridge Analytica shut down in May 2018. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was forced to testify before the U.S. Congress, and the company later agreed to a $725 million class-action privacy settlement alongside a $5 billion fine.

How do I feel about knowing that AI is always lurking around, studying me everywhere and recommending what it presumes I would want to see, hear, or do based on my past behavior?

The same predictive logic animates navigation apps. A map app does not simply tell you the shortest route from one address to another; it predicts how traffic is likely to behave by the time you reach a particular interchange, whether an alternate road will save three minutes, and how thousands of other drivers are moving through the same geography. The estimated arrival time on a phone screen is not neutral. It is an algorithmic forecast, continuously revised as conditions change based on real-time data and patterns. That is, assuming it works. Often it doesn’t. Especially in later model vehicles whose GPS and navigation capabilities are based on your mobile phone and the car’s software being in sync and cooperating with each other.

AI algorithms are very different, however, from other qualitative and quantitative metaphysics. Both the primitive Dewey Decimal System and Library of Congress classification and coding systems were archetypical algorithms that helped us to find information easier and quicker. But they were neither predictive nor predatory. AI can be – and is – both.

Prediction also lives in the keyboard. Autocorrect, predictive text, grammar suggestions, “Smart Compose” in email, and even the quick one-tap replies that appear beneath a message all rely on the same premise: language is “patterned” enough that software can guess what a human is about to say or think. Sometimes the guess is useful. Sometimes it is absurd. Either way, it reflects a quiet but radical shift in the relationship between people and their machines. We no longer are simply using tools to write; increasingly, the tools are trying to write alongside or ahead of us.

Does that compromise our creativity? No longer do we scratch out and substitute something different and, hopefully, better (or erase, for that matter). We needn’t even rely on the backspace button on our keyboards. Because no matter the changes we make, AI adapts and adopts them. And continues insisting that it is merely an adjunct, helping us simply to do and make better.

Where does our inherently human train of thought fit amidst this predisposed writing?

Online shopping is fundamentally predictive. It begins when deciding whether “apple” means the fruit or Apple the computers and smart phones. Retailers track what customers browse, compare, buy, and leave behind in abandoned carts, then use those signals to infer taste, price sensitivity, urgency, and intent. The recommendation for the waterproof hiking socks that appears after you buy hiking boots is not random. It is a probabilistic judgment about who you are as a consumer and what you are likely to do next. If Amazon seems to know what you want before you do, that’s not magic. It’s pattern matching at scale.

The cumulative effect of all this prediction is subtle but powerful.

AI does not merely respond to our choices; it increasingly anticipates them, arranging digital life around what it assumes we are about to want

In plain English, AI is curating our reality one swipe at a time.

Foxes in the Hen House?

If one branch of everyday AI exists to anticipate desire, another exists to detect trouble.

This is the less glamorous side of the technology, but often the more valuable one: systems trained not to tease and delight us, but to notice when something is off.

Email spam filters are the veteran workhorses of this category. They scan incoming messages for patterns associated with fraud, phishing, manipulation, and bulk solicitation, quietly sparing users from a flood of junk and scams. Because they work so well most of the time, they have faded into the background. But the ability to distinguish between a legitimate invoice, a political fundraising plea, and a fake password-reset message is not a trivial technical feat. It is a continuous act of machine judgment, built on recognizing ever-changing patterns of digital deception.

It is here, I believe, that AI has gone too far and invades our privacy.

Yahoo Mail now reads my correspondence and, for almost every email I receive, categorizes it, tells me what it’s about, and provides a summary of the content. Sometimes, it even hints at (or suggests) how I am being asked to respond and what actions I should take.

Banks and credit card companies do something similar with money. When a card issuer texts to ask whether you really made a purchase in a city you’ve never visited or flags an online order that doesn’t match your typical spending behavior, it is often responding to an AI system trained to detect anomalies. The software is not “thinking” in any human sense, but comparing the present against a history of past behavior and asking a practical question: does this look like you? Did you do this? (No need to respond if, indeed, you did.)

Moreover, a lot of “Press 1 for billing” systems are now smarter than they sound.

The same logic is moving into homes and cars. Smart doorbells and security cameras distinguish between people, packages, animals, and harmless motion, reducing false alarms while turning ordinary household surveillance into a more selective form of machine attention. Refrigerators inform us when we’re running low on certain groceries. Wearables and smartwatches watch for irregular heart rhythms, unusual sleep disruptions, or sudden changes in biometric patterns. Modern cars monitor lane position, blind spots, nearby vehicles, and sometimes even signs of driver fatigue, sounding alarms or nudging behavior before a lapse becomes an accident. If my 2025 Open Astra suspects that I’m edging out of my lane or too close to the road shoulders, it physically pushes the car back into place.

Does this resemble the cinematic AI of science fiction? Or is it something both more prosaic and useful: software standing guard over the unnoticed vulnerabilities of daily life, scanning for the suspicious charge, the dangerous drift, the missed cue, the thing that doesn’t fit.

So far, so good, huh?

Minding My Business

Prediction and protection are only part of the story.

Some of the most powerful AI systems in everyday life do not simply guess what we want or warn us about danger. They decide what we see in the first place.

This is most obvious on social media, where the feed has become one of the defining AI products of the modern era. What appears on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, X, or YouTube is not simply a chronological record of what other people posted. It is a ranked and filtered stream assembled by systems designed to maximize attention. AI decides which posts rise, which disappear, which videos autoplay, which creators gain momentum, which comments are hidden, and which ads seem to follow users from one app to the next. The feed can feel organic, even intimate, but it is the result of relentless technological curation. These social media have now invaded my personal email, advising me about job openings I should apply for, suggesting people to friend or follow, alerting me not to miss a given post, podcast, or person on their platforms.

News platforms increasingly work the same way.

Apps and websites recommend stories based on reading history, rank headlines according to predicted interest, and use moderation tools to suppress spam, abusive comments, or suspicious activity. In principle, this makes digital information easier to navigate. In practice, it also means that AI is helping shape the architecture of public attention—what seems urgent, what appears popular, what is amplified, and what quietly disappears.

Search engines belong in this category, too. They are often discussed as neutral gateways to information, but modern search is as much about curation as retrieval. AI helps determine what a query means, which sources deserve prominence, and what kind of answer format—webpage, map, video, snippet, shopping result—will most likely satisfy the user.

Gemini (owned by Google/Alphabet), ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, Meta AI, and others are quickly replacing Snopes and other fact-checkers. See something posted on social media that doesn’t seem kosher? If it’s questionable, just ask one of these AI engines. Not only will they tell you whether it’s true or false but provide a history and context framing it.

How easy AI makes it to find information!

Who was the actor that played a given TV character? What warning is an H5 code on my air conditioner giving me … and what should I do about it if I can’t find the manual that came with the appliance five years ago? When did man first walk on the moon? Where can a find a particular product nearby (or online)? Why won’t my keyboard characters match what’s appearing on the screen … and how do I correct this? How do I say something in Spanish, French, or Swahili?  

Search no longer simply finds information. It organizes a version of the world and presents it back to us in ranked order.

This may be AI’s most underestimated power: not just to respond to human curiosity, but to structure it. To place certain choices, ideas, products, and stories directly in front of us while leaving others in the shadows.

That’s why, when in doubt, I tend to use more than one AI program to double-check another.

Making Decisions for Me

Another category of everyday AI feels almost administrative yet may be the most consequential of all: systems that make small decisions on our behalf so routinely that we barely notice the delegation.

When a customer-service chatbot decides which support path you need, when a call-routing system infers whether you are calling about billing or a lost password, when a hiring platform ranks one résumé above another, or when a translation app decides how to render your sentence into another language, AI is not merely making a suggestion. It is making a choice—sometimes a minor one, sometimes a consequential one—about how the world should be sorted and how a person should proceed through it.

AI is not just recommending content. It’s learning what version of content gets our attention.

Hiring software offers one of the clearest examples. Employers increasingly rely on AI to screen applicants, match résumés to job descriptions, and surface candidates who appear most relevant. On paper, this can sound efficient, even rational. In practice, it means that invisible systems may determine who gets noticed and who gets filtered out long before a hiring manager enters the picture. A messy, subjective human process does not become neutral simply because software now helps administer it. It’s not always fair or accurate, but it is very common.

Customer service works similarly, if on a smaller scale. Chatbots and automated support systems now answer routine questions, summarize previous interactions, draft replies for human agents, and steer customers toward specific solutions. Translation tools make judgment calls about tone, phrasing, and context. Meeting software decides how to transcribe spoken language into text. Smartphone cameras decide how aggressively to brighten a night shot, smooth a face, or blur a background. None of these are monumental decisions. But together they reveal something important about the trajectory of AI: much more of modern life is being mediated by systems that quietly decide, sort, classify, and act before a human intervenes.

That delegation is seductive because it feels efficient. It reduces friction. It saves time. It spares us from tiny acts of effort and judgment. But it also normalizes a world in which mechanisms make more of the small calls that shape daily experience—not only what we consume, but what we miss; not only what gets flagged, but what gets through; not only what gets recommended, but what gets decided for us in advance.

And for whose benefit?

Technology We’ve Already Accepted

The easiest mistake to make about artificial intelligence is to think of it primarily as a future event—as a dramatic threshold we are about to cross. This is the version of AI that dominates public argument: the chatbot that might replace writers, the autonomous agent that might replace office workers, the bots that flood politics with misinformation, the automated supermarket checkout that replaces cashiers, the machine that might one day become out of our control.

Those concerns are not imaginary. But they can obscure a simpler and more immediate truth: much of the AI revolution has already happened … and it happened quietly.

It happened in the inbox, where spam filters became smarter than human patience. It happened in the map app that rerouted the commute. It happened on the streaming platform that learned our tastes, the bank that learned our spending habits, the camera that learned how we preferred to look, and the feed that learned what could hold our attention a little longer. It happened in the thermostat, the smartwatch, the résumé screener, the caption generator, the chatbot, the fraud detector, and the keyboard trying to finish our sentences.

A lot of what people think is a “better camera lens” is actually computational photography powered by AI. Most newer cars are already partial AI systems on whells.

That is what makes AI both less exotic and more important than popular imagination often allows. It is not just a spectacle of futuristic possibility; it is a layer of decision-making and prediction already embedded in the infrastructure of ordinary life. It can be useful, manipulative, protective, intrusive, efficient, biased, boring, indispensable, and unnerving.

Sometimes simultaneously.

Before we ask what artificial intelligence will become, it is worth recognizing what it already is: not merely a tool of the future, but a hidden collaborator in the present. A system of quiet judgments, small conveniences, and invisible interventions that have taken up residence in modern life so thoroughly that most of us notice it only when it fails.

The most common AI in our daily lives isn’t glamorous. It’s not humanoid robots or dramatic sci-fi stuff.

AI, in other words, is no longer just coming for the future.

It has already moved into the house, woven into the invisible plumbing of modern life.

*with a little help from AI.

Taking Trump to Task

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Feeling deceived by their party and a president who deserted them, Magats are furious and have begun to eat their own.

When such major GOP influencers as Marjorie Taylor Greene, Laura Loomer, Tucker Carlson, Matt Walsh, and Steve Bannon (among others) publicly express outrage against this administration’s actions, we know that something’s stewing and rotten inside.

Driving the most recent hellabaloo is Trump’s decision, announced by his defense (“war”) secretary, Pete Hegseth, that the USA would allow Qatar to build a military base in Idaho.

The move comes months after Trump accepted a luxury Boeing 747 from the Qatari government, which drew criticism from both Democrats and Republicans, including Loomer.

In an executive order, Trump also declared that the United States will regard any attack on Qatar’s territory, sovereignty or critical infrastructure “as a threat to the peace and security of the United States” itself. Quite notably, the language of the executive order closely resembles the security guarantee that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) gives to member countries. (Qatar is not a NATO member).

MAGA feels betrayed.

Many conservative commentators questioned how the move is aligned with Trump’s “America First” agenda.

“There isn’t a single Trump supporter who supports allowing Qatar to have a military base on US soil,” argued Loomer. “I don’t know who told President Trump this was a good idea, but it has made people not want to vote. This is the type of thing I would expect from a President Ilhan Omar.”

Conservative commentator Amy Malek wrote in an X post: “Qatar has spent $100 billion buying influence in the U.S., and it’s paying off. I am in shock that Washington would approve a deal letting Qatar, Hamas’s #1 financier, open a Qatari Air Force facility on U.S. soil. Qatar bankrolls Hamas, ISIS, the Taliban, al-Nusra, and the Muslim Brotherhood. This isn’t ‘shared defense goals.’ It’s a shared delusion. We’re not building peace. We’re building a launchpad for the Islamic disaster.”

Conservative radio show host Mark Levin wrote in an X post: “I never dreamed of anything like this. We’ve not only agreed to go to war for Qatar but they’re now building an air force facility in our country. Shocking.”

Alexander Duncan, a Texas Republican Senate candidate, said in another X post: “Qatar is not an ally. Qatar is an Islamic State ruled by Sharia. Qatar has the same ultimate objective as the rest of Islam: to conquer the entire world until it is all under one Islamic State (Caliphate) ruled by Sharia.”

Trump himself earlier had condemned Qatar. In June 2017, Trump said Qatar “has historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level” and supported a blockade against the country, led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE. 

A Qatar military base in the USA is only the latest in a series of actions taken by this felon in the White House that defy the Constitution, breaking laws, conventions, and convictions long held sacred by this country.

This isn’t an America anyone voted for.

MAGA, Trump’s base, holds him contemptible for lying and breaking promises made during his campaign to release the entire Epstein file. Since then, however, he’s employed every evasive tactic–including ignoring and firing essential personnel who strongly advised him against pushing his appointed admins for grudge and retribution indictments against such notables as former FBI chief James Comey,  New York Attorney General Letitia James, Fulton County (GA) District Attorney Fani Willis, former Trump National Security Advisor turned Trump critic John Bolton, and California Senator Adam Schiff.

Trump isn’t even hiding what he’s doing: the evidence is in his September 20 post addressed to Attorney General Pam Bondi which mentions Comey, James, and California Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff. “They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!” Trump wrote.

MAGA isn’t alone in its anger against Trump & Company’s actions.

  • The vast majority of Americans, including Republicans and those who identify as strong supporters of President Donald Trump, want Congress to renew the enhanced tax credits for people who buy their health insurance from the Affordable Care Act Marketplace.

Holding health care for Americans hostage, Democrats, Independents, and several Republican members of Congress are aghast at what the government shutdown can do to the USA’s stability … financial and family-wise.

Trump’s response – laying off even more essential employees from “Democratic” programs, departments, and agencies – isn’t helping, especially when increasing numbers of Americans are having difficulty getting their already earned Social Security payments.

  • Tariffs forcing Americans and countries worldwide to pay more for essential goods and services are the province of Congress … not the Executive Branch. Yet Trump has stamped and stampeded his will on these taxes, driving up “kitchen table” matters like the cost of living, rather than lowering them as promised.
  • Seeing armed and masked military causing havoc in the streets of such major cities as Los Angeles, DC, Chicago, Portland, Memphis (with others targeted to come), is provoking outrage throughout the country and around the world. Innocent people, law-abiding immigrants, and USA citizens are caught up in the carnage caused by unidentified men rounding them up, taking them down, and deporting them to places unknown.

Their devil-may-acre attitude with all of its trappings is horrifying many, including clergy caught up in the web. A federal agent firing pepper balls at protesters outside the ICE processing center in the Chicago suburb of Broadview last month struck a praying pastor in the head. Said another protesting pastor, “It’s like the gates of hell crashing against the kingdom of heaven.”

That’s why millions of Americans protest daily, culminating on October 18th with thousands of “No Kings” marches (referred to as “Hate America” riots by prominent Republicans and their newscasters) across the country, the Atlantic, and around the world.

  • Along with many Democrats, Independents and a few on the other side of the aisle, I find the insolence and arrogance of Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, and RFK Jr. while testifying before congressional oversight committees revolting.

Bondi and Patel have politicized the USA’s Justice Department and FBI, while RFK Jr. has cut programs keeping Americans healthy, hearty, and hale.

  • Blackmail and intimidation are being used against the legal profession, educational institutions, government employees, our judicial system, and private citizens.
  • Increasingly, “insurrection” and “insurrectionists” are words used by this administration, preparing the nation for Martial Law.
  • Redistricting is held every ten years, following the official Census, not midterm for partisan favors initiated by the president and counter-balanced by states blue and red.

With lawmakers on a continuing hiatus, ignoring their roles and responsibilities as well as their constituents as dear leader assumes ever more control, “taxation without representation” is taking on a renewed meaning.

Millions of Americans are protesting daily, culminating on October 18th with thousands of “No Kings” marches (referred to as “Hate America” riots by prominent Republicans and their newscasters) across the country, the Atlantic, and around the world. Marches like these will continue over and again.

What else can we do to stop Trump’s march toward fanatical fascism?

Petition for impeachment hearings against not only Trump, but his entire team. The Constitution gives Congress the power to impeach federal officials: The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. (Article II, Section 4). They’re all guilty!

► By all and every means, protest.

► Join organizations and online groups whose causes and concerns align with yours. There’s strength in numbers!

► Thousands of lawsuits, including 20 brought by states and at least 190 active cases are challenging Trumpian actions. Support them.

► Demand an independent investigation into how Trump “won” (or stole) the 2024 election. Many people wiser than me believe Trump conspired with Putin and Musk (et al) to put Trump over the top.

► Refuse to pay federal taxes. Are your elected officials truly representing you?

► Begin now to support candidates of your choice for the 2026 midterm elections.

► Petition for impeachment hearings against not only Trump, but his entire team. The Constitution gives Congress the power to impeach federal officials: The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. (Article II, Section 4).

They’re all guilty!

The Biggest Lie

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If the “Big Lie” purported by Donald Trump referred to his verifiable loss of the 2020 election, fact-checkers to his continuing series of reckless lies (“alternate realities,” as one of his first-termers called them) have counted hundreds — possibly thousands — of other lies … especially since he was elected to a second term.

But, perhaps, his election is an even a bigger lie?

“Donald Trump filled his first 100 days back in office with the same relentless lying and inaccuracy that was a hallmark of his first presidency and his 2016 and 2024 presidential campaigns,” stated CNN’s Daniel Dane, who listed 100 separate false claims from Trump since his inauguration on January 20, fact-checked concisely with hyperlinks to more information.

During his first term as the 45th President (2017–2021), The Washington Post’s Fact Checker team documented 30,573 false or misleading claims over four years, averaging about 21 per day. This number increased over time: roughly 6 claims per day in his first year, 16 in the second, 22 in the third, and 39 in the fourth, especially spiking around the 2020 election.

For his second term as the 47th President (starting January 20, 2025), CNN’s fact-check of Trump’s first 100 days (through April 2025) noted “relentless dishonesty” with at least 100 specific false claims identified, though they didn’t provide a daily average. NPR’s analysis of a single August 2024 news conference found 162 misstatements, exaggerations, or lies in 64 minutes, over 2 per minute. These snapshots suggest the pattern of frequent false claims has continued, though comprehensive data for the second term is still emerging.

PolitiFact, fact-checking Trump since 2011, reviewed 1,078 claims as of March 2025, rating about 77% as Mostly False, False, or Pants on Fire (their term for egregious falsehoods).

Trump’s falsehoods are unprecedented in scale and impact.

Critics note his repetition of false claims, like those about the 2020 election, exploits the “illusory truth effect,” where repeated exposure makes falsehoods seem believable, especially among supporters. Nonetheless, they’re still lies.

“During and between his terms as President of the United States, Donald Trump has made tens of thousands of false or misleading claims,” begins Wikipedia. “Fact-checkers at The Washington Post documented 30,573 false or misleading claims during his first presidential term, an average of 21 per day. The Toronto Star tallied 5,276 false claims from January 2017 to June 2019, an average of six per day. Commentators and fact-checkers have described Trump’s lying as unprecedented in American politics, and the consistency of falsehoods as a distinctive part of his business and political identities. Scholarly analysis of Trump’s X posts found significant evidence of an intent to deceive.”

So, it should come as no big shock that Trump is lying about his contribution to Jeffrey Epstein’s so-called Birthday Book. “Fake!” screamed Trump. And many of his Republican supporters on the Hill supported him, quibbling over the veracity of his signature.

They’ve got to be kidding!

This is no smoking gun. Rather, it’s not unlike Bill Clinton’s blue dress scandal. In November 1997, Monica Lewinsky told her confidant and supposed friend, Linda Tripp, that she had in her possession a blue Gap dress that still bore the semen stain that resulted from her administering oral sex to President Clinton in February of that year. In late July, 1998, Lewinsky turned the dress over to Kenneth Starr’s investigators after signing an immunity agreement. A blood sample was taken from Clinton on August 3, and on August 17, the FBI reported its conclusion that Clinton was the source of the semen on the dress “to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty.”

When news of the the existence of the dress surfaced in published reports in early August, politicians and commentators alike agreed that the blue dress proved Clinton lied when he denied a sexual relationship with Lewinsky. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) called the evidence “very critical.” Senator Arlen Spector (R-Pa) agreed that it would be “the most powerful kind of corroboration” of an affair. A George Washington law professor, Jonathan Turley, appearing on “Meet the Press” said of the semen stain: “No one will be able to spin him out of that.”

A US congressional panel has released a redacted copy of an alleged “birthday book” given to Jeffrey Epstein in 2003 celebrating his fiftieth birthday. The 238-page book contains messages and photos sent by many of Epstein’s friends, including a letter carrying a signature resembling US President Donald TrumpThe alleged entry from Trump contains a signed note outlined by a sketch of a woman’s body. The final line reads: “A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy birthday – and may every day be another wonderful secret.”

Trump denied ever writing the birthday note.

As for his doodles and signature in the book, he’s lying when claiming that they’re not his, as doubters and forensic experts already have expressed. The Wall Street Journal reports that the signature is consistent with Trump’s autographs in the past.

If not Trump’s, whose are they?

Why would someone — over 20 years ago — insert a fraudulent, forged greeting that echoed a younger Trump’s bawdy behavior and his clearly documented friendship with pal Epstein? What could be a possible motive? By whom? To what end?

It makes no sense whatsoever.

Except that Trump, once again, is lying.

Rather than a red herring, he’s been caught red-handed in a really big lie that may well cost him voters, even among his base.

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee also released a photo from the book showing Epstein holding a novelty check selling a “fully depreciated” woman to Trump for $22,500.

Ironically, Jeffrey Epstein reportedly had an oil painting of Bill Clinton conspicuously displayed in his Manhattan townhouse. The artwork by Petrina Ryan-Kleid shows the former US president draped over a chair in the Oval Office, dressed in a blue dress and red heels recalling his tryst with Monica Lewinsky.

In December 1998, the House impeached Clinton for obstruction of justice and perjury after Starr and his team brought forth documents showing, among other allegations, that the commander in chief had lied under oath about a relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

Maybe this page from Epstein’s birthday book will turn out to be Trump’s semen-stained blue dress?

Food for Thought

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It’s said that in these parts of the Alentejo, the best porco preto (“black pork”) is served in a town named Arronches, not far from Portalegre. We’ve come to love the sweet and savory taste of this pork … when well prepared. If not, it’s just another Portuguese dish.

Arronches is about 45 minutes from our home in Vila Boim, Elvas. We’ve passed by the place when visiting friends who live in the nearby village of Assumar; but we’ve never been to Arronches.

Today we went.

During this time of the year, many villages, towns, and cities in Portugal hold their own special ferias–holiday fairs. Somewhere online I’d seen that Arronches would be celebrating this weekend.

“Want to go?” I asked Russ earlier this week.

“Sure!” he replied. “Let’s see if we can finally find a good restaurant to try the porco preto.”

I searched on TripAdvisor and a bunch of other sites dedicated to recommending restaurants. On every single one of them, A Cabana (The Cabin) came up as #1 … with hundreds of 5★ and far fewer 4★ reviews. Its atmosphere was described as “romantic” (we found it charming and adorable) with prices ranging from € (Facebook) to €€-€€€ (TripAdvisor). Based on our tab, I’d say TripAdvisor is more accurate. In a way, the digs reminded me of a restaurant with the same name (The Cabin) on the outskirts of Sturgeon Bay, WI.

A Cabana doesn’t have its own website, but it does have a Facebook page. On Thursday, I messaged them to make a reservation for the two of us at 1:30 PM (13:30) on Saturday. We figured that would give us enough time to visit the fair and then eat a hearty meal early enough. Within five minutes — I kid you not! — I had a response: “combinado!” (confirmed).

Unless you’re an expat or immigrant living in Portugal, you can’t understand how unusual (even rare!) it is to receive a reply to one’s email or message here. The Portuguese tend to ignore them. You’re better off telephoning or stopping by.

Two thumbs up for A Cabana!

We arrived in Arronches at about 11:45 (AM), only to find ourselves lost in space. GPS and Google Maps were no help. Russ thought that the fair would be held in the “campo” (countryside), while I distinctly remember reading something about it being held in a pavilion. Before going around the bends another time, I asked Russ to pull off so that I could ask a local for information.

“Isn’t today a holiday in Arronches? Where can we find the fair grounds?” I asked a gentle giant of a man with a beard who nodded “yes” and pointed down the road … “Just continue going down this street until you come to he,” he said.

Russ turned to me before driving down the street to tell me, “He looks familiar. I think he might be the chef at A Cabana.”

Driving downhill, we finally approached the site. Amazing–there was plenty of parking! Very unusual in Portugal … especially when something of general interest is happening.

We soon understood why:

The only activity occurring at the fairgrounds when we arrived was a sheep competition. Nothing else. Not even the dozens of stalls selling food and souvenirs were open, let alone live music. It all would begin later that evening.

“What do you want to do?” Russ asked me.

“Let’s go to the restaurant and see if they’ll take us earlier,” I suggested. “That way, we can get an earlier start on doing some shopping we’d planned at E LeClerc, along with filling the car with GPL (liquefied gas) and washing it.

A bunch of people of all ages were already queuing up outside the restaurant, whose front door was open but nobody was inside. I approached the owner-chef-waiter — who, indeed, was the helpful man who’d given us directions earlier! — and asked if we could change our reservation to now rather than later. “Of course,” he said, pointing to the first of four tables for four. Behind them, in a row against the back wall, all of the tables were pulled together to accommodate 22 people … including those waiting outside, and then some.

“We understand that you make the best porco preto in town,” I told him while we both were standing in front of the chalk board where the menu was written.

He smiled broadly and recommended both the “secretos” (secrets) plate for €20 and the “plumas” (feathers) dish for €23. We ordered one of each, which came with salads and the best fried potatoes (“crisps,” per our British friends) we’d had in a while–super thin yet crispy, without any soggy orphans left behind. To go with our food, I had (two) glasses of tinto wine and Russ had (two) steins of beer.

It suddenly occurred to me that the maitre d was responding to my questions in Spanish, not Portuguese, although I was doing my best to speak coherent Portuguese. ¿No é portugues? (aren’t you Portuguese?) I asked him. “Sim, claro” (Yes, of course), he replied. “Then, why are you talking Spanish to me?” I asked in Portuguese. “I thought you were Spanish, he grinned.” It must have been my accent, One lesson I’ve learned since living in this western part of Iberia is always to speak Portuguese … to never initiate a conversation in Spanish, assuming the Portuguese understand it.

Anyway, everything was delicious!

The food, the service, the atmosphere were all extraordinary. (We personally preferred the plumas — cut thickly, parts cooked medium, others medium-rare to perfection — over the secretos.)

Of special note to us — who spend two months in Portugal and one month in Spain — was how relatively quiet and civilized the table of 22 behind us was. In Spain, you’d never be able to hear yourself think with that many people clustered together.

Our bill came to less than sixty euros. Although I tend to cringe when food here in Portugal costs that much, I reminded myself that we’d be gone from the USA for six years already. Who knew how much a meal like this would cost in a place like Sturgeon Bay?

Probably lots more.

Whatever …

It was well worth it!

P.S. If you plan to eat at A Cabina, remember to bring cash. The restaurant doesn’t accept plastic — credit or debit cards — although it does honor MB Way.

Pastor, professor, publisher, and journalist Bruce H. Joffe is an award-winning author of magazine features, academic research, journal articles, self-help manuals, and newspaper stories. His nine books deal with international (intercultural) living, progressive theology, gender studies, “social” politics, our vulnerabilities, marketing, and the media. 

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Cast Your Bread Upon the Waters …

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No. I won’t pray for him.

So, please don’t ask me.

I may be a pastor, but I question the efficacy of intercessory prayer. Personally, I believe that prayer comforts the one praying more than it helps the intended beneficiary.

I don’t understand or respect why he was there, but I will light a candle for Corey Comperatore, the former fire chief killed at the Pennsylvania rally who spent his final moments diving down in front of his family, protecting them from the gunfire.

Remember when Jesus came upon a gang of zealots about to stone a woman for allegedly committing adultery? Each lay down his rocks when Jesus reminded them that the one among them without sin should be the first to throw a rock. One by one, they left … realizing that none of us is without indignities or indiscretions.

The man I’ve been asked to pray for — because his ear was pinged either by a bullet or a stray piece of glass — has used his bully pulpit to throw lots of rocks, warning the world about bloodshed if he doesn’t win. He’s called for chaos, using tear gas for his convenience to empty a park so he could have a photo op in front of a church with an upside-down Bible. He’s published his own Bible. He floated the idea of executing Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley, inciting violence against the nation’s top general. He mocked the attack on Paul Pelosi. And he repeatedly has promised to weaponize the federal government by pursuing revenge, retaliation, and retribution against his political enemies.

Analyzing over 13,000 of his Truth Social posts from January 1, 2023 to April 1, 2024, media found that threatening political opponents has been a consistent fixation for him. Since the start of last year, he has issued direct or implied threats to use the powers of the federal government to target Joe Biden at least 25 times. He’s also threatened or suggested that the FBI and the Department of Justice should take action against senators, judges, members of Biden’s family and even non-governmental organizations. ABC News found 54 cases invoking his name in connection with violence, threats, alleged assaults. He declared New York Justice Juan Merchan a “highly conflicted” overseer of a “kangaroo court” and his supporters swiftly replied to his Truth Social post with a blitz of attacks on the judge. Some called for Merchan and other judges hearing cases against Trump to be killed.

As he was taken away from the rally and to a hospital, his campaign power brokers declared that the pictures of him punching the air with blood trickling down his face would become “iconic,” all too useful in painting him a strong man contrasted with his weak opponent. Such were their calculations during this photo opportunity. They will be especially useful motifs for the Republican Convention beginning today.

Indeed, the attempted assassination sparked a frenzy of online merchandise featuring pictures of the former president just after he was shot, with slogans such as “Bulletproof,” “Legends Never Die,” “Grazed but not Dazed,” and “Shooting Makes Me Stronger.”

Didn’t Jesus preach that we’re to love our enemies? Bless them that curse us? Do good to them that hate us? And pray for them who despitefully used and persecute us? (Matthew 5:43-44) Yes, he did. But he also warned that “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven,” which I believe this man has committed.

Devout Jewish people traditionally throw food to the fish during their High Holidays — Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur — each year, as instructed by Ecclesiastes 11:1–“Send out your bread upon the waters, for after many days you will get it back” (NSRV), or this translation from the Complete Jewish Bible, “Send your resources out over the seas; eventually you will reap a return,” or this one from the Living Bible: “Give generously, for your gifts will return to you later.”

This verse about diligence is open to many interpretations.

But in the case of the former president, I believe that Ecclesiastes 11:1 was fulfilled this past Saturday night.

Pastor, professor, publisher, and journalist Bruce H. Joffe is an award-winning author of magazine features, academic research, journal articles, self-help manuals, and newspaper stories. His nine books deal with international (intercultural) living, progressive theology, gender studies, “social” politics, our vulnerabilities, marketing, and the media. 

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Cause for Pause … and Fear

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From the International New York Times, these words give me cause for pause and fill me with fear:

“I watched the Biden-Trump debate alone in a Lisbon, Portugal, hotel room, and it made me weep. I cannot remember a more heartbreaking moment in American presidential campaign politics in my lifetime — precisely because of what it revealed: Joe Biden, a good man and a good president, has no business running for reelection. The Biden family and political team must gather quickly and have the hardest of conversations with the president, a conversation of love and clarity and resolve. To give America the greatest shot possible of deterring the Trump threat in November, the president has to come forward and declare that he will not be running for reelection and is releasing all of his delegates for the Democratic National Convention.”

Other international press reviews were equally sour on Biden:

Wall Street Journal–“In the first presidential debate of the 2024 campaign, President Biden gave the kind of delivery that Democrats feared, one that lacked vigor and combativeness. Trump, meanwhile, uncharacteristically was able to keep his composure in a 90-minute show that brimmed with insults and policy contrasts.”

Associated Press–Biden “just didn’t have the spark that we needed tonight,” Rosemarie DeAngelus, a Democrat from South Portland, Maine, said from her watch party at Broadway Bowl. Trump, she said, showed “more spunk or more vigor” even if, in her view, “he was telling a pack of lies.”

CBC–“How bad was it? It had the Democrats on post-debate panels asking if Biden will drop out.”

DW–“One of the biggest takeaways: The Democrats are in trouble. From the very start, Biden’s voice sounded brittle, which several campaign sources after the debate attributed to a cold. This would normally not be a huge deal, normally, it made 81-year-old Biden, whose age has been a major point of contention throughout the campaign, seem extra frail.”

Politico–“Europe’s press was stunned by Joe Biden’s “near-catastrophic” performance in the first U.S. presidential debate of 2024 in the early hours of Friday morning. The Continent’s leading websites splashed with scathing reactions and commentary about the showdown between Biden and former U.S. President Donald Trump, with many singling out Biden for criticism after a rocky display in which he struggled with detail and delivered halting lines.”

CNN–“If Joe Biden loses November’s election, history will record that it took just 10 minutes to destroy a presidency. It was clear a political disaster was about to unfold as soon as the 81-year-old commander in chief stiffly shuffled on stage in Atlanta to stand eight feet from ex-President Donald Trump at what may turn into the most fateful presidential debate in history.”

HuffPost–“Biden struggled to land any real blows himself. Democrats are sounding the alarm about the president’s performance. We knew the stakes of this debate were high — but the impact on November’s election is hard to understate.”

Hollywood Reporter–“The president has been locked away at Camp David engaging in strenuous preparations for the last week, but you wouldn’t know it from his rambling, unfocused performance. From the very beginning, he spoke too quickly, failing to form coherent sentences and frequently losing his train of thought. And why, oh why, did no one think of giving him a lozenge? He didn’t just have a frog in his throat — he had the entire amphibian kingdom.”

The Guardian (UK)–“Could there be a contested Democratic convention? How would that even work? Replacing the president may not be an option, they said, but many acknowledged Democrats are talking about it, spurred by Biden’s troubling debate performance.”

New York Times–“A halting debate performance by President Biden left Democratic strategists reeling, raising questions about his fitness to stay in the race. President Biden’s shaky … debate performance has Democrats talking about replacing him on the ticket.” Later, the NYT’s editorial board issued a call for Biden to step aside.

Bloomberg–“Joe Biden delivered an excruciating performance, at one point freezing mid-sentence, heightening fears about the 81-year-old president’s mental acuity. It also reminded the rest of the world what they’ll get if Trump wins in November.”

BBC–“Before Thursday evening, many Americans had expressed concerns about Joe Biden’s age and fitness for office. To say that this debate did not put those concerns to rest may be one of the greatest understatements of the year.”

Público (Portugal)–“Biden had a ‘disastrous’ debate against Trump and left Democrats in ‘panic.'”

Jornal de Noticias (Portugal)–“Biden’s shaky performance, especially at the beginning of the debate, has fueled concerns among many voters who fear an uncertain future with his reelection, sparking a new wave of calls among Democrats for the candidate to step down and make way for someone more capable of standing up to Trump at the polls. Despite playing the offensive role in his speeches, the current president appeared confused and lost his train of thought several times, mixing different topics in the same response and stopping for a few seconds while searching for the right word.”

Diário de Noticias (Portugal)–“US Vice President Kamala Harris emerged early Friday as a critical figure in the Democratic campaign, following Joe Biden’s disastrous performance in the first presidential debate with rival Donald Trump.”

Sky News (UK)–“Democrats are questioning whether Joe Biden should continue his re-election bid after a debate “disaster” against Donald Trump.”

Sueddeutsche Zeitung (Germany)–“The true losers of the first TV debate in the U.S. election campaigns are the Americans.”

Matt Kiser (WTF Happened Today)–“The first presidential debate between the two oldest candidates to ever seek the White House was an embarrassment for America – and a disaster for Biden.”

And this from No Labels–“No Labels saw our effort as a necessary insurance policy against the possibility that both major parties would put forth candidates most Americans don’t want—which is precisely what they have done. If there was one good thing about the presidential debate starting at 9 p.m., it’s that we didn’t have to subject our children to … whatever THAT was. Two men were arguing about their golf handicaps and struggling to make honest, coherent points about solutions for our country. You better believe Hamas terrorists, Russia and China were watching. This is why we tried to add a third choice for president to the ballot. Extreme forces took unprecedented and potentially unlawful action to stop us. Now we’re fighting back “

On June 14th last year (2023), I posted these words on this blog:

“For the greater good of the USA and democracy, per se, I believe President Biden needs to complete his term, step aside, and defer to another.”
https://pastorbrucesblog.com/2023/06/14/political-options-2024/

People may say (or tell pollsters) that they’ll be voting for Biden … but how many, instead, will stay home … or vote for third-party candidates in protest? Even voters who are “resigned” to the current candidates are looking — and hoping — for a lifeboat.

In this perfect storm, the damage has been done.

But, can it be rectified?

I will vote Democrat, regardless of the candidate. But, like those on The View and MSNBC (see links below), I feel only resignation about voting for Biden. No joy or excitement … as Trump is eliciting from his MAGA Repugs.

As my British friend living in Spain put it, “There is a school of thought that debate was scheduled early to ‘manufacture consent’ for Biden’s removal. The article simply represents the consent that has been manufactured.”

We need to nominate charismatic leaders — like Gavin Newsom (CA) or Roy Cooper (NC) and Gretchen Whitmer (MI) or Amy Klobuchar (MN), around whom people will rally … and vote!

Have you seen this discussion among women on The View?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TG7wL2okds

Or this of real voters on MSNBC?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_clVA97rN0

Veteran journalist Bob Woodward declared Biden’s debate performance deplorable, egregious, the worst he’d ever witnessed. The Washington Post Associate Editor said, “We know WHAT happened.” But, “as journalists” reporting to the public, he demanded to know “HOW” and “WHY” it happened. Therein is the real story.

Why weren’t Biden’s spark plugs firing? Was it a matter of not enough rest and sleep? Stress overload? Something clinical, perhaps, and degenerative? Pharmaceutical? A focus on something else, something even more important happening elsewhere? When-how-why might it happen again?

For the sake of the country and its democracy, I am among those who believe Biden should step aside. If he does, his legacy will treat him well for everything he’s accomplished during his four years in office. If he doesn’t and Trump wins — with such razor-sharp margins, perhaps Trump has a better chance of doing so now, after this debate — Biden will be remembered for allowing Trump and his legions to destroy democracy … and the USA.

Pastor, professor, publisher, and journalist Bruce H. Joffe is an award-winning author of magazine features, academic research, journal articles, self-help manuals, and newspaper stories. His nine books deal with international (intercultural) living, progressive theology, gender studies, “social” politics, our vulnerabilities, marketing, and the media. 

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No Laughing Matter

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With all that we have to worry about these days, nearly everyone appreciates a good burst of laughter.

Back in the day, didn’t Reader’s Digest tell us that “laughter is the best medicine”?

Predating the computer, the laugh track may be the first instance of artificial intelligence being used and hoisted on us.

If so, the first — and last — laugh is on us!

Even two rooms away from the living room television, the “laugh track” stands out as the annoying absurdity it was and still is, thanks to the Internet and sites like YouTube: it’s called “canned laughter,” where people in the audience supposedly split their sides laughing.

If you don’t know (or remember) the sickening sound of canned laughter, simply Google “laugh track sound effect” and play it for laughs or to feel like a laughing stock.

The use of canned laughter and other audience reactions was pioneered by American sound engineer Charles “Charley” Douglas, whose laugh track became a standard in mainstream USA … dominating most primetime sitcoms and other comedies from the late 1950s to the late 1970s.

While Douglas laughed all the way to the bank.

If a joke didn’t get the desired chuckle, Douglas inserted a barrel of laughs to encourage the live audience — including Seinfeld’s — to laugh.

This technique became known as “sweetening,” in which prerecorded laughter was used to enhance the response of studio audiences if they didn’t react as strongly as desired: howling with (canned) laughter.

Talk about manipulation!

With the demise of sitcoms and live studio audiences, laugh tracks decreased and gave way to the development of “stereophonic” laughter in the 1980s.

Researching this piece, I came across someone laughing at all of us who fell prey to this gimmick: “I don’t know how you can watch those old sitcoms,” she wagged. “Everything about them annoys me … starting with the canned laughter.”

Scientists have noted the similarity in forms of laughter induced by tickling among various primates, suggesting that laughter derives from a common origin which includes laughing in someone’s face.

Nonetheless, laughter isn’t always funny and can lead to some serious health problems. One woman with a racing heart syndrome collapsed and died after a period of intense laughter. Some other risks are: Protrusion of abdominal hernias — side-splitting laughter or laughing fit to burst. A quick intake of breath during laughing can cause foreign bodies to be inhaled. It can trigger asthma attacks, incontinence, and headaches.

CBS researchers said their search was limited to laughter without exploring related behavior such as chuckles or grins.

“We infer that laughter in any form carries a low risk of harm and may be beneficial.”

So, the next time you can’t stop laughing, go right ahead … with a wee bit of caution.

Because s/he who laughs last, laughs best.

LOL!

Pastor, professor, publisher, and journalist Bruce H. Joffe is an award-winning author of magazine features, academic research, journal articles, self-help manuals, and newspaper stories. His nine books deal with international (intercultural) living, progressive theology, gender studies, “social” politics, our vulnerabilities, marketing, and the media. 

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Can SCOTUS Be Stopped?

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Formal group photograph of the Supreme Court as it was been comprised on June 30, 2022 after Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson joined the Court. The Justices are posed in front of red velvet drapes and arranged by seniority, with five seated and four standing. Seated from left are Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and Justices Samuel A. Alito and Elena Kagan. Standing from left are Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Credit: Fred Schilling, Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States

I am especially concerned about the growth and reach of the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) into politics and other matters which the Founders had no intention for the Court to meddle. Unlike the balance of power allegorized by a troika, the merging and morphing of the USA’s three branches of government into an increasingly ultra-right orientation is dangerous to our civil rights and the Constitution. Especially when the highest court in the land is integrally involved.

Last week it was revealed that Justice Samuel Alito had, at two of his homes, flown flags associated with the “Stop the Steal” movement. The movement falsely asserts that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump (by) Joe Biden, editorialized HuffPost Politics.

Barring other explanations, it would seem to be a clear conflict to the justice’s mandate to be — or at least appear — impartial and unbiased. Justices have certainly recused themselves from cases for less. But Alito has made no moves to suggest that he would bow out of the ruling on either relevant case, the newspaper continued.

And of course, this follows last year’s spate of stories suggesting that some justices had acted unethically, accepting lavish gifts and vacations from conservative influencers. Alito and Clarence Thomas, in particular, admitted to attending luxury vacations on billionaires’ dimes, which they defended by citing court disclosure guidelines that say personal hospitality from friends is permitted. Public disapproval prompted the high court to adopt new and clearer ethics guidelines — though they still lack an enforcement mechanism.

When put all together, HuffPost concluded, it’s hard to shake the feeling that the justices are now just doing what they please, secure in the knowledge that no one has the power, or the will, to enforce any consequences for them.

Can SCOTUS be stopped? Are there any limits to the powers it exercises? Can it, legally, be overruled?

Yes!

Here are some of the potential reins on the US Supreme Court:

> SCOTUS can reconsider and overturn previous rulings it has made, as in its recent Dobbs decision … and many others.

> When the Supreme Court rules on a constitutional issue, its decisions can be altered by the rarely used procedure of constitutional amendment or by a new ruling of the Court. However, when the Court interprets a statute, new legislative action can be taken.

> According to the League of Women Voters, with enough political will and a willing President, it is within Congress’ authority to limit the US Supreme Court’s power by restricting what type of appeals it can accept. Theoretically, Congress could therefore limit the Court’s ability to restrict or remove certain fundamental rights by preventing it from hearing cases about them in the first place.

> Given the unlikelihood of an admission of impropriety from any Supreme Court justice, a more extreme avenue available to lawmakers who would seek to hold them accountable for compromising the neutrality and legitimacy of the court: impeachment. Over the country’s history, 15 federal judges have been impeached, and eight removed from office; others resigned in the wake of scandal instead. So one thing, at least, is clear: Unlike for presidents, there is ample precedent for firing federal judges via impeachment. Article III states that these judges “hold their office during good behavior,” which means they have a lifetime appointment, except under very limited circumstances. Article III judges can be removed from office through impeachment by the House of Representatives and conviction by the Senate. The only Justice to be impeached was Justice Samuel Chase in 1805.

> The Constitution limits the Court to dealing with “Cases” and “Controversies.” John Jay, the first Chief Justice, clarified this restraint early in the Court’s history by declining to advise President George Washington on the constitutional implications of a proposed foreign policy decision. The Court does not give advisory opinions; rather, its function is limited only to deciding specific cases.

> Although the Court’s decisions cannot be appealed to any authority (as it is the final judicial arbiter in the United States on matters of federal law), the Court may consider appeals from the highest state courts or from federal appellate courts.

It is this last measure that most intrigues me. More than one newscaster’s panels have mentioned — merely mentioned, without going into any real detail — that it is within the power of a “coalition” of lower courts to question and arbitrate the roles played and decisions made by SCOTUS.

I, for one, would love to learn more about this!

The unique position of the Supreme Court stems, in large part, from the deep commitment of the American people to the Rule of Law and to constitutional government. The United States has demonstrated an unprecedented determination to preserve and protect its written Constitution, thereby providing the American “experiment in democracy” with the oldest written Constitution still in force.

Pastor, professor, publisher, and journalist Bruce H. Joffe is the award-winning author of magazine features, academic research, journal articles, self-help manuals, and newspaper bylines. His eight books deal with international (intercultural) living, interfaith theology, gender studies, “social” politics, marketing, and the media.

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Purge the Evil?

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As genocide takes its toll in accordance with verses in which we’re told, “You must purge the evil from among you,” the Bible is complicit in many of the wholesale massacres and slaughters we’ve seen in the modern-day world … in places like Haiti, India, Zimbabwe, Turkey, Uganda, Russia, Ukraine, Serbia, Nepal, Rwanda, Afghanistan, Lebanon, The Solomon Islands, Ethiopia, Bosnia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Indonesia, and Cambodia. And certainly, of course, in Israel and the Gaza Strip.

Nor can we forget the United States, whose history is filled with a lack of tolerance for those who are “different” from mainstream WASPs and whose support has contributed to the killing of many in lands near and far. Former USA President Donald J. Trump used the fascist terminology “vermin” to describe immigrants, as he shouted words then repeated by others, that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.”

Organized murder, the deliberate killing of many people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group is genocide.

Sadly, it’s all around us.

For progressives and literalists, I wonder how many of these human slaughters can be attributed to the words not of God but men—Moses and the Apostle Paul, in particular: “You must purge the evil from among you.”

First found in Deuteronomy, the fifth book of the Bible and the conclusion of the Pentateuch, Moses wrote these words in the form of a farewell address to the Israelites before they entered the promised land under Joshua’s leadership.

In Deuteronomy alone, “… you must purge the evil from among you” appears eight separate times … in 13:5, 17:7, 17:12, 19:19, 21:21, 22:21, 22:22, and 24:7. Later, Paul alludes to these verses but embellishes their word in I Corinthians 5:13, “But God will judge those outside. Remove he evil person from among you.”

Ironically, these words were turned inside-out, with Jewish people in their homeland and across their diaspora the victims.

As early as 605 BCE, Jews who lived in the Neo-Babylonian Empire were prosecuted and deported. Antisemitism was practiced by the governments of many empires (i.e., Roman) and the adherents of many religions (i.e., Christianity, Islam) and Jews were often used as scapegoats for tragedies and disasters—from the Inquisition and pogroms to the Holocaust, Hitler’s “final solution” for purging “the evil” he believed had infiltrated his Aryan nation, Jewish people have suffered unmercifully.

Now, the shoe is on the other foot as modern-day Israelites under the direction of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are deliberately killing Hamas in Gaza … along with thousand of innocent people—Palestinians, young and old. Not that their attacks weren’t provoked or justified when, last October 7th, a barrage of at least 3,000 rockets were launched against Israel.

Hamas fighters breached the Gaza–Israel barrier, attacking military bases and massacring civilians. The attackers killed 1,139 people: 695 Israeli civilians (including 36 children); 71 foreign nationals; and 373 members of the security forces. About 250 Israeli civilians and soldiers were taken as hostages to the Gaza Strip, including 30 children.

The attacks consequently started the expansive Israel–Hamas war.

Every time these genocides occur, the world insists “never again.” But the political, religious, and moral blind spots that allow these atrocities will persist until anti-religious doctrines are disputed and the lessons of history are learned.

“You shall purge the evil from among you.”

Indeed.

Pastor, professor, publisher, and journalist Bruce H. Joffe is the award-winning author of magazine features, academic research, journal articles, self-help manuals, and newspaper bylines. His nine books deal with international (intercultural) living, interfaith theology, gender studies, “social” politics, marketing, and the media.

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The System Is Broken

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When even Portuguese officials complain publicly about the “broken system” and tell you that it’s “impossible” to schedule an appointment online, by phone, or in person — yet recommend that you show up at the local AIMA office and storm the gates — you know that the problem is dire and probably unfixable.

I’m referring, of course, to AIMA, SEF, and SIGA (they’re all culprits in the conspiracy) … and getting your residency visa renewed.

We’ve lived in Portugal for over six years now, arriving when D7 residency visas were issued for one year … renewed for two … and then renewed again for two, before one could get “permanent” residency (a misnomer, as it’s only good for five years) or even apply for citizenship, if so desired.

During our tenure here, residency changed from 1+2+2 to 2+3 and we were caught betwixt and between, as our last residency was for three years (not two) … requiring us to wait an extra year (totaling six) before applying to renew our residency.

HAH! If it weren’t so serious, the foibles, facts, and fables told about trying to get an appointment with SEF’s current iteration (AIMA) would be the stuff bureaucratic boondoggles are laughed about.

We had tried ourselves through SIGA, Portugal’s official scheduling “app” for all the country’s often overlapping agencies and entities. That led us down a rabbit hole since, when searching by agency, neither AIMA (nor SEF) appear … and, when searching by purpose or keyword (“residency renewal”), we’re taken to Registros where the only real option is to select renewal of citizen, not residency, cards. Once you enter the requested data, however, a pull-down menu magically appears … allowing you to indicate that the purpose of your appointment is specifically residency renewal. When we appeared at the designated place and time, we had to wait almost an hour, only to be told by quite frustrated clerks that, no, they couldn’t renew our residency there … we’d have to go to either Portalegre or Évora. It was then and there that we were told by the frustrated bureaucrats that the system was broken and nothing worked now as regards to renewing one’s residency.

Ultimately, we hired a lawyer (lawyers, we were told had better access to the system) to make an appointment for us. She did. Scheduled for 24 January 2024, officialemail notification showed that our residency renewals would be for two “cases” (i.e., people). The next day, nonetheless, we received a cancellation notice–no reason given. Later that day, another email arrived confirming a new date: 31 January, a week later than originally scheduled.

When we arrived and our number was called, the attendant insisted that only one of us — me — was on the “list.” And my spouse? “Reschedule!” we were told. We called our attorney while seated opposite our interrogator and she spoke directly to him. Back and forth, back and forth, they argued in Portuguese … him finally handing me the phone. “He could handle you both, if he wanted to,” she told me. “He doesn’t want to. So, you’ll be processed now and I will try to schedule another appointment for your partner.”

Again, that was on 31 January.

My better half still doesn’t have an appointment, although our residency expired several months ago. And, despite being told that I’d receive my new residency card within 60 days, it’s been 90 already … and I’m still waiting, my proof of processing and payment in hand.

Is it any wonder that people are protesting, demonstrating in front of AIMA’s headquarters in Lisbon? (https://www.theportugalnews.com/…/immigrants-to…/88011)

Meanwhile, “The Portuguese Agency for Integration, Migrations and Asylum (AIMA) has said that it needs around one and a half years to resolve 350,000 pending residency applications filed by foreigners until 2025. (https://www.linkedin.com/…/portugal-wont-able-process…)

It will be 2025 before AIMA resolves the 350,000 pending residency applications? What about all the new visas being granted? Are they still good for four months only? How long will it take AIMA to get around to them?

May be a graphic of text that says "aSaS CROWN ROWN AIMA A A The Agency for Integration, Migrations, and Asylum wwww. aima.gov.pt Renewal appointments already open on SIGA WWW.CROWNPORTUGALEU Welcome"

Pastor, professor, publisher, and journalist Bruce H. Joffe is the award-winning author of magazine features, academic research, journal articles, self-help manuals, and newspaper bylines. His eight books deal with international (intercultural) living, interfaith theology, gender studies, “social” politics, marketing, and the media.

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