Month: July 2026

Weekly Comments: World Cup Winners: Spain (and USA). Canadian Smoke. Trust in America.

 #1319    July 19, 2026

          COLUMBUS, Ohio: In the World Cup, Spain beat Argentina 1-0. Most fans were pulling for Messi and his Argentina teammates, but Spain’s defense held them scoreless, just as it did all but one of their opponents. Wow!

The other winner was the USA. No other country can host an event this big, in multiple cities, with excellent security. Fans from around the world were surprised at our hospitality, amazing choices in food and places to shop. We take this for granted, but they had been fed a negative view of America and Americans. We learned the Viking row and they enjoyed singing “Country Roads.” These fans are going home and bragging about us! That makes us a winner.

As a person who enjoys sports with scoring, I’m not thrilled to watch a defensive masterpiece that goes almost two hours with no goals. With that in mind, the most exciting game of the World Cup was yesterday. England beat France for third place, 6 to 4. That is not a typo. Ten goals! The TV announcers were overjoyed. After broadcasting matches with only one or two goals, often after 30 minutes of overtime, they were as excited as Gus Johnson announcing a 36 to 35 Michigan-Ohio State football game.

Smoke from forest fires in Canada drifted across the border. This resulted in all kinds of “air quality alerts” south of the Great Lakes and on to the East Coast. Here in Columbus, it lasted a couple of days before the wind shifted.

President Trump threatened Canada with an increased tariff to cover the lost revenue. I’m not clear what that means. Is Canada “selling” us the smoke? What will Trump add a 50% tariff on? Lumber?

Meanwhile Canada is taking swift action. The Parliament passed a law forbidding lightning strikes on their 900,000,000 acres of forest land. From now on, lightning in Canada will only be allowed to hit tall buildings, parked farm machinery, and American boats on the Canadian half of Lake Erie.

The smoke reminded old folks of the air sixty years ago in steel mill towns such as Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Gary, Indiana. Many of us had relatives who lived through the Dust Bowl years of the 1930s.

Of course, Canada can’t ban lightning. And they can’t clear the underbrush from a Billion acres of forest. And Mother Nature is in charge of wind direction. Concerning dust from tilled farm ground, we can help our farmers prevent 90% of dust storms today.

As part of our celebration of 250 years, I heard a person list possible one-word answers to the question, “What is the key to our success as a nation?”  Of course, patriotism, liberty, and democracy were mentioned. Greg Gutfeld, mostly known for his comedy, said the word is “Trust.” We trust banks with our money. We trust Amazon and other businesses with our credit card, and that whatever we buy will satisfy us. We trust airlines to fly us to our destination safely, and usually on time. We trust our employer and we trust each other. Hand shake deals aren’t as common as they used to be, but you can’t get much more trusting than that.

My friend, David Horsager, wrote a book, “The Trust Edge.” He describes how to build trust, and how to keep it.

You can think of many examples where “trust” is taken for granted in the USA. We could name other countries where the key word would be “conniving” or “scheming” instead of trust.

Historic quotes by Will Rogers:

       “Flew [to Cleveland] from Washington, in one hour and thirty minutes, piloted by Dave Ingalls, Assistant Secretary of the Navy. I ‘thumbed’ my way here, so I think that’s a record for speed for a hitch-hiker. This Ingalls is a very remarkable young man in more ways than flying. In fact, he is the only Republican I would trust my life with.” DT #1736, Feb. 16, 1932

       “It’s surprising how little money we can get along on. Just everybody keep on trusting everybody else. Why it’s such a novelty to find that somebody will trust you that it’s changed our whole feeling toward human nature.” DT #2057, March 8, 1933

Affordability has been a main theme of the Socialist candidates winning elections in New York City, Maine, and other places.

Mayor Mamdani and the 3 new Socialist council members figured out the best solution to affordability. The raised their own salaries almost 20%. This reminds me of the Will Rogers quote, “It’s not what you pay a man [or woman], but what he costs you that counts.” (WA #119, March 22, 1925)

Everybody with common horse sense knows that increasing your income is the best way to make whatever you want to buy more affordable. Food. Electricity. Child care. A new car. A house.

While Mamdani and Socialist Party candidates promised to lower prices, they took the surefire way to make their own purchases affordable.

Have you seen the Platform of the Democrat Socialists of America? They want to tear up the Constitution! Eliminate the 3 co-equal branches of government (Legislative, Executive and Judicial). Abolish the Senate. Instead, the House of Representatives would control everything. The House would appoint a president and supreme court justices.

Illegal immigrants and all other immigrants here, or desiring to come here, would be granted amnesty and registered to vote. Funds for police and jails will be given instead to community organizers. Drastically reduce military spending (better learn to speak Chinese!). They issued a special warning to Israel, “You’re on your own. Yes, murderous Muslims outnumber you 100 to 1. We want all Jews in America to get out, go to Israel, and fight to the death.”

Now, if Republicans can’t win against candidates running on that platform, they deserve to go on the trash heap with the Know-Nothing Party, Bull Moose, and the Whigs.

Here’s a line I wrote exactly 10 years ago. ‘Hillary Clinton officially welcomes Socialists as an equal part of the Democrat Party.’ Today, most Democrat leaders are also welcoming Socialists into the “big tent.” What they seem to miss is that they are being shoved out of their own tent.

You probably know that the “Farm Bill” is about 80% for free food, called SNAP. SNAP stands for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The key word is “Nutrition.”

Are these foods and ingredients “nutritional?” Hamburger, milk, grapes, apples, flour, eggs, tomatoes, potatoes, beans, chicken legs? Definitely.

How about these? Mountain Dew, candy bars, donuts, chocolate cake, Doritos, Gatorade? No! They’re tasty, but not nutritious.

According to USDA, SNAP recipients spend about $20,000,000,000 on these non-nutritious items per year. Perhaps by coincidence, Democrats in Congress are up in arms at the proposed cut of $20,000,000,000 in SNAP funding.

West Virginia and a few other states have already eliminated “non-nutritional” items from SNAP. It should be national. SNAP recipients should not be spending about 19% of our taxpayer money on junk food. This change might even help reduce obesity.

Historic quote by Will Rogers:

“Communism is like Prohibition. It’s a good idea, but it won’t work.” WA
#254, Nov. 6, 1927

I hope you enjoyed all the celebrations of our 250^th birthday as much as I did.

The parades, festivities and fireworks across the country, including a few speeches, were proof of an observation by Will Rogers, “America is the land of opportunity and don’t ever forget it.” (DT#1541, July 1, 1931)

Will Rogers loved America. “I was always proud in America to own that I was a Cherokee and I find on leaving there that I am equally as proud to own that I am an American.” (Letter to his father Clem, Sept. 28, 1903)

But Will reminded us a few times about our sad treatment of Cherokees and other Indians, including cheating on treaties, forced evacuation from home territories, discrimination against individuals, and lack of respect for accomplishments by Indians. He did all he could to promote and build up individual Indians and African-Americans in movies and newspaper articles.

(In case you are wondering, Will was in Europe the summer of 1926, so he missed our 150^th year celebration on July 4. He wrote nothing about it.)

         “The American people are a very generous people and will forgive almost any weakness, with the possible exception of stupidity.” (WA #63, Feb. 24, 1924) Now, I don’t mean to complain about the festivities last night in Washington. If you watched, you know that President Trump gave a speech followed by fireworks.

Here’s my complaint, solely on behalf of four singers from the military. Imagine this conversation a month ago: the Organizer, to the singers, “We’re delighted to have your beautiful voices entertain millions on July 4 along with the President’s speech and the largest, loudest fireworks in U.S. history.” The singers asked, “We’re honored. Will we be singing before or after the Fireworks?” Organizer, “During.”

What?? Sing for 45 minutes DURING the Fireworks? With 850,000 shells exploding at 150 decibels?

I’ll credit the singers, and the military band. Concentration and ear plugs got them through the torturous setting. Young folks in the front rows could hear them sing, and often sang and danced along with them, oblivious to the largest Fireworks ever.

The highlight of President Trump’s speech was recognition of historic flags displayed and introducing Veterans, as old as 107, on stage to salute those flags. He also reminded us that our rights do not come from government, they come from God. And our best days are ahead of us!

This positive, optimistic message was the opposite of a couple of prominent speeches and attitudes of too many Americans who let day-to-day politics determine their level of patriotism. For those who claimed they are not patriotic this 250^th year, I would ask, Were you patriotic in our 247^th year? Or 237^th?

Love of our country should not change by the month or year. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution a few years later provide a rock-solid foundation for our Republic to endure and keep improving. Our freedom of speech allows anyone to offer crackpot ideas. Some of ‘em even get elected.

Historic quote by Will Rogers:

        “When those Boys that blue-printed the first Constitution decided that a man can believe what he likes in regard to religion, that’s one line that is going to stay put.” WA #136, July 19, 1925