Ed Raymond

Ed Raymond is a former Marine officer and school board superintendent, and resides in Detroit Lakes.

Content By This Contributor:

Is Life Just Keeping House On The Deck Of The Titanic?

Ed Raymond

“Trump is the first American president whose only religious impulses arise from the American prosperity gospel.” Remember when Trump said he never had to forgive anybody? We all know how religious he is. His only religion is himself and his precious bank account.

Free Speech Is Very Expensive

Ed Raymond

In a letter written to a friend Koch expressed his admiration for totalitarian governments: “I am of the opinion that the only sound countries in the world are Germany, Italy, and Japan, simply because they are all working and working hard.” He made these comments about The New Deal of FDR

Amazon’s Bezos Ain’t Hamlet

Ed Raymond

Sanders says: “In my view, a nation cannot survive morally or economically when so few have so much and so many have so little. Millions of people of people across this country struggle to put food on the table and are one paycheck away from economic devastation, and the wealthiest people have never had it so good.”

Angry Black Cattle On The White Ranch

Ed Raymond

” My God, didn’t this Hall of Fame tackle ever go to elementary, middle school, high school, and college history classes? Did he ever study the Constitution and the history of the labor movement and the power of strikes and walkouts? If he didn’t, he’s the perfect Trump voter.

A World of “Fake” Men

Ed Raymond

“Man is an animal whose chief occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species, which multiply with such rapidity as to infest the whole habitable earth and Canada.”

What Is Democratic Socialism?

Ed Raymond

To elect an average senator today runs about $20 million, a house seat $1.5 million! That’s what the Republican Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision did to our politics. Open the money flood gates!

American Dream Bye-Bye

Ed Raymond

“Trump’s political movement meets the definition of a cult. Donald Trump fits the stereotypical profile of a cult leader. His followers fit the model as well. Many Trumpistas, especially the ones that say, ‘He could do anything and we would still believe him, we would still follow him,’ sound like people who have been indoctrinated into a totalistic mindset.”

American Paychecks

Ed Raymond

The big Republican tax cut? Higher wages have not appeared yet, but corporations such as Apple, Wells Fargo, and McDonald’s have spent $680 billion of those tax cuts buying back their own stock, thus enriching CEOs and shareholders.

American Exceptionalism

Ed Raymond

The number of suburban residents living in high poverty areas has tripled since 1990, primarily because earnings have stayed flat for the last forty years in most suburbs

American Coyotes and Fat Cats

Ed Raymond

“Despite our ridiculously hypocritical attitudes towards immigration, we demand that Mexicans cook a large percentage of the food we eat, grow the ingredients we need to make that food, clean our houses, mow our lawns, wash our dishes, and look after our children.

Armageddon and Rage

Ed Raymond

The rich don’t need public recreational facilities. They own theirs and have the luxury of privacy.

Ageless Jim Crows

Ed Raymond

If you owe money because of court fines, traffic fines, and other legal fees such as victim restitution, you cannot vote until such fees are all paid. Nine Republican states have passed that law.

Abortion and Gender

Ed Raymond

There truly is a huge cultural canyon between conservative Catholics clinging desperately to a bush keeping them from falling to the floor of Culture Canyon and those cherry-picking Catholics who take a pass on a lot of medieval Vatican teaching.

Africa: The Human Birthplace

Ed Raymond

So what’s the big deal about race? Religions, tribes, and isolation encourage differences in humans. Attitudes seem to melt away when we get to know people from other tribes. We are even beginning to recognize dozens of gender identities that have been around for thousands of years.

Random Death By Bullets

Ed Raymond

Perhaps at the request of the incoming NRA president Marine Colonel Oliver North Congress should approve grants to study the effect of Ritalin on firearm deaths. North said after the Santa Fe murders: “Young boys who have been on Ritalin since they were in kindergarten turn into school shooters.”

Armageddon and Rage

Ed Raymond

Because of income inequality several major cities have become too expensive for the lower middle-class and the poor to live in. California, Washington, and Oregon cities have major problems with the poor and homeless. Full-time workers have to commute hours to their jobs. Road rage incidents have become commonplace.

We Aren’t Out of The Trees Yet!

Ed Raymond

A Southern Baptist minister surprised church members by describing a “well-built” 16-year-old girl as “Biblical.” What proverb? What did he have on his mind? Many states governed by Republican governors and legislatures have been preaching abstinence for decades. It has always failed

A Swift Solution for Poverty

Ed Raymond

Southern states, generally led by Republican governors and legislatures, have increased poverty by refusing to expand Medicaid benefits to the poor under the Affordable Care Act and passing anti-union “right to work” legislation which ensures that workers have “the right to work for less.”

Are We Tickling The Dragon’s Tail?

Ed Raymond

Emperor Donald has assumed the mantle of a “religious” cult leader by persuading evangelical Christian leaders to follow him to the Oval Office and Mar-A-Lago. In repeating 3,000 lies in over 2,500 tweets since his crowning, he has proven, according to numerous scholars, to be historically, theologically, morally, and scientifically illiterate.

Maybe We Should Quote The Raven More

Ed Raymond

But incidents with ravens in Alaska indicate an intelligence that is “overmore.” When it really gets cold in Alaska, ravens during the day will fly to streetlights and cover the light sensors with their wings so the lights come on. The bulbs give off heat so the ravens warm themselves. Some of our politicians would never have figured that out.

What Is The Christian Thing To Do?

Ed Raymond

If one lacks knowledge and the intelligence to gain it, one remains ignorant. This includes political judgment. Dunning and Kruger add this shocker: “They’re not smart enough to realize they’re dumb.” Ouch.’

The NRA Gun Lobby And Republicans Pick Guns Over Kids

Ed Raymond

The American Psychiatric Association has estimated that 6% of Americans on average are mentally or emotionally disturbed during any one year. That means that 19.5 million of us require extensive therapy or hospitalization while we are bonkers.

The Beginning And End Of Two Similar Societies

Ed Raymond

Republican President Theodore Roosevelt wrote: “This country would not be a good place for any of us to live in if it is not a reasonably good place for all of us to live in.”

A Broken and Bewildered Country

Ed Raymond

“The public no longer believes that America’s major institutions are working for the many. Increasingly, they have become vessels for the few.”

What Military-Style Rifles Do To Human Bodies

Ed Raymond

Since Parkland many Minnesota high schools have had to go on lockdown because of “Jesses” making threats to kill students and shoot up their schools.

When Will The NRA Gun Cult And The Gun Lobby Culture Inherit The Wind?

Ed Raymond

They believe the AR-15 symbolizes the “rod of iron” in the Book of Revelation. My God! What Would Jesus Do?! On the day of the blessing an elementary school a block from the church decided to close for the day. Some church worshippers wore crowns made of bullets! Is LaPierre the new Christ?

A Bloody Stage For Gun Culture-Cancer

Ed Raymond

We have 4.4% of the world’s population and 42% of the guns. The facts are we are ten times more likely to be killed by guns than people in other developed countries.

Brave New World, Part Two

Ed Raymond

Perhaps we should take lessons of government from Finland and the Scandinavian countries. After just a century of independence from Russia, Finland has been recognized as the most stable, the safest, and the best-governed country in the world.

Christians Who Raise Cain

Ed Raymond

Trump supporters want to go back before Roe v. Wade when abortion was illegal and women used lye, coat hangers, and other sharp instruments to abort. Wasn’t that a great period?

Will Rogers was right

Ed Raymond

“There are three kinds of men: The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.” It’s a tough way to learn.

Old RVs Parked Among Bel-Air Mansions

Ed Raymond

Some areas might go without power for a year because of the inept and often incompetent FEMA of theTrump administration. The only thing our Great Leader has done well is to throw paper towels to desperate people.

Bump Stocks and Muskets

Ed Raymond

We are absolutely nuts to have sold almost 14 million of any type of weapon like the AR-15 in the civilian firearm market. If we are going to stop the present obscene carnage, they should all be melted down and turned into lawn furniture and auto parts.

Dreamers Are Having Nightmares

Ed Raymond

This year the volunteers counted 553,742 homeless in the country on one night. Estimates range to 250,000 more homeless sleeping and pooping in hidden spots.

American Sex, Lies, and Lots of Videotape

Ed Raymond

When 81% of white evangelicals helped elect King Donald they were not making a Christian statement, they were making a political power statement.

All About Disaster Capitalism In A Christian Nation

Ed Raymond

Congress should study the fact why a three-bedroom, two bathroom house in Sunnyvale, California which sold for $27,500 in 1963 was recently sold for $2.47 million. It needed some work. This was almost 100 times greater in the span of 54 years. Worker’s wages only went up ten times in the same time period.

The Trumplestiltskin Era

Ed Raymond

The song “Organized Crime” by Ethan Miller and Kate Boverman outlines the essential problem, using a quote from 19th Century French writer Honore’ de Balzac: “Behind every great fortune, there is a crime.”

The Sacklers: America’s Biggest and Richest “Legal” Drug Pushers

Ed Raymond

Deborah Dowell, senior medical advisor of the Centers for Disease Control, says: “We overestimated the benefits of opioids and underestimated the risks. We assumed without adequate evidence that they would work as well long term as they did in the short term.”

Don’t Want To Be Shot? Get Small

Ed Raymond

Another trauma surgeon with less experience said: “There’s nothing that can prepare you for what bullets do to human bodies. And that’s true for pro-gun people also.”