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Tim Wildsmith, who reviews various Bibles on his YouTube channel, decided to purchase and review Donald Trump’s scam $60 Bible amid its growing popularity among his sucker base. Upon receipt, Wildsmith noted the Bible’s overall presentation was underwhelming, considering its price. The cover, though branded with patriotic symbols, is made from synthetic leather, which appeared cheap and was already showing signs of wear like creases and dings upon arrival. Additionally, the Bible lacks detailed publishing information, typically found in most Bibles, which adds to the ambiguity about its production.

The internal quality of the Bible also left much to be desired. The paper was thin with significant bleed-through, and the text was tightly packed, making for a difficult reading experience. Wildsmith was particularly taken aback by the fact that the pages of the Bible were poorly produced, with many pages stuck together—a flaw that became apparent as pages tore when he attempted to turn them.

The inclusion of American documents and the Pledge of Allegiance directly after the text of the Bible was, to Wildsmith, a peculiar choice that might not resonate well with all audiences. The blending of nationalistic elements with scriptural texts has raised questions about the appropriateness of intertwining religious faith with patriotic sentiments in such a manner.

Critically, Wildsmith found the commercialization aspect of the Bible problematic. The high retail price coupled with the low production quality suggests a profit-driven motive rather than a genuine effort to enrich faith through patriotic pride. Moreover, the lack of transparency about the Bible’s production where there is normally copyright information hints at possible outsourcing in Asia, which could be seen as hypocritical given its patriotic marketing.

What you also see on a page like that is where it was printed. A lot of Bibles like this are printed in China and I would be shocked if Donald Trump was promoting a Bible that was printed and bound in China but I I literally can’t find it.

I looked on their website and it says nothing about where it was printed. That is a little bit suspicious to me that they’re not telling us where these Bibles were printed. Which makes me think that it’s definitely not in the United States, because I think they would proudly put that in here if it was and that it’s likely somewhere in Asia, particularly probably someplace like China.

Trump merchandise made in China has been known for some time, with various news outlets reporting on this fact, as well as the cognitive dissidence employed by Trump supporters who cheer when Trump bashes China and cheer when Trump constantly talks about how great Xi Jinping is.

Wildsmith concluded The God Bless the USA Bible stands as a controversial artifact at the intersection of faith and patriotism. It challenges the conventional separation of church and state and raises ethical questions about the commercialization of religious texts. While it may appeal to a niche market of patriotic believers, it also risks alienating others who view such a melding of American identity and Christian faith as inappropriate or even offensive.

Over the past several years, a number of prominent Republicans and right-wing commentators have called for a civil war or have used coded language like “national divorce.” This rhetoric is dangerous and anti-democratic, and it is important to be aware of it.

It is important to call out this rhetoric whenever we hear it or see it from our friends and family on social media or in person. We need to make it clear that violence is not the answer, and that we are committed to resolving our differences peacefully through the democratic process.

The examples are many, but include:

• Trump tweeted during his first impeachment, “If the Democrats are successful in removing the President from office (which they will never be), it will cause a Civil War like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal.”
• Greg Gutfeld called for a new Civil War because “elections don’t work.”
• Marjorie Taylor Greene claimed on Hannity, “The last thing I ever want to see in America is a civil war … but it’s going that direction.”
• Failed Republican candidate for Senate and Vice President Sarah Palin, called for a civil war during a Newsmax interview.
• Steve Bannon declared there is no longer any coming together of right and left, and we are in a civil war.
• Ned Ryun on Jesse Watters’ Fox News show said “we are in a cold civil war with the left” as a reaction to Donald Trump’s arrest and mugshot.
• Chip Roy said if Warnock and Ossoff win Georgia: “If we have a Democratically-controlled Senate, we’re now basically at full-scale hot conflict in this country, whereas right now we’re in a cold civil war.”
• Clay Higgins made a call to arms over Trump’s indictment for stealing America’s classified documents.
• Greg Gutfeld said gender affirming care will cause Christians to engage in a civil war.
• Tucker Carlson threatened civil war if Republicans did not win in 2020.
• Tucker Carlson said any gun control legislation should result in a second civil war.
• Peter Navarro says a Second Civil War is coming because of Trump’s indictments, and says to Democrats that what they are doing “will come back to haunt you as soon as Republicans take back Trump’s America from your cold, woke hands.”
• Marjorie Taylor Greene said “We need a national divorce where we can split into red states and blue states. No, that doesn’t mean civil war. Doesn’t mean you can’t travel to different states. There would still be trade and commerce.”
• Republican State Senator Colton Moore said on Steve Bannon’s podcast he was ready to take up arms and said a civil war was coming if Trump was convicted.
• At a fundraiser for the indicted Michigan fake electors, State Rep Matt Maddock, the husband of one of them, is on audio tape saying that if the government keeps prosecuting right-wingers then someone is going to get shot or a civil war will happen.
• Newt Gingrich said we[re drifting into a civil war because of Trump’s criminal indictments.
• Conservative podcaster Tim Pool called for a civil war and an escalation of violence over Trump’s criminal indictments.
• Has-been actor Jon Voight responded to Trump’s trial date announcement by claiming only Trump can lead Republicans in Civil War 2.0.
• BlazeTV’s Steve Daece said conservatives are in a “cold civil war” and the social contract is dead.
• Podcaster Dennis Prager said we’re in a civil war because the left hates Donald Trump.
• Podcaster Steven Crowder threatened a civil war if Donald Trump got arrested.
• Conservative commentator Doug Hagmann called for violence against poll workers in the next Civil War, which he was bringing his own guns and providing body bags for his victims.
• The mother to murderer and conservative hero Kyle Rittenhouse, said lawyer Lynn Wood left Rittenhouse in jail despite having bail money to save him from Civil War and Armageddon. In reality Wood was grifting the Rittenhouses out of money.
• Actually, Lynn Wood, who was part of Trump’s failed “Kraken” team has been promoting a Civil War against liberals, independents, and non-Trump loyal Republicans quite regularly.
• Domestic terrorist and Proud Boy leader, regularly promoted by Fox News and right wing media, Enrique Tarrio, expected a Civil War before January 6th which he tried to accelerate.
• January 6th rioters were seen wearing Civil War shirts.
• Conservative thought leader Michael Knowles called for a civil war if Trump is successfully kept off ballots in states using the14th Amendment for his part in an insurrection.
• Fox host Mark Levin said fellow Republican Liz Cheney was on the wrong side of a civil war because of her disloyalty to Donald Trump.
• Fox host Trish Regan said America is “at a breaking point in terms of an emotional civil war with violence that will spill into our streets.”
• Trump ally Joe diGenova told Fox host Laura Ingraham that conservatives should buy guns and prepare for war.

Ever wonder how your friends, family, and co-workers cite out-of-this world crazy statistics and make claims you understand to be completely out of sync with reality.

Introducing PragerU, whose motto “Undoing the damage of the University… five minutes at a time” fits squarely into the anti-intellectualism promoted by extremist conservatives. PragerU isn’t actually a university, or a school, just a website created by Neo-Conservative talk show host Dennis Prager, which pumps out five-minute videos on various topics filled with Republican talking points, skewed facts, and rarely gives quality academic citations.

There are literally hundreds of videos on the PragerU website that cover many right-wing favorites such as, learning how to deny the fundamentals of science, ignore systematic racism in police departments, recognize it’s a compliment when women are sexually harassed, and making anti-Semetism palatable to the public.

For a deeper dive let’s review one of their latest five-minute course on why freshman Congressman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and progressive politicians are wrong about raising the minimum wage to $15 dollars per hour.

First, watch the video. Don’t worry your face won’t melt and your kids won’t turn into little Ronny and Nancy Reagans, but it will help set the stage for the rest of the article and understand their “facts”, but before you do, notice the video’s thumbnail. A sharp, smiling professional CEO Andy Puzder vs. an out-of-focus no-nothing stupid bartender AOC. (Who actually graduated cum laude from Boston Univ. in economics.)

It’s an ugly personal attack right off the bat to prime the viewer the two are not on equal levels, which will set the theme for the classism highlighted in the entire video.

The premise of the video hosted by former Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. CEO and a failed nominee for Trump’s Labor Secretary, Andy Puzder, boils down to two parts:

• A raise in the minimum wage will result in a massive loss in jobs.
• If you are lucky enough to still retain employment your hours will be cut.

As far supply-side economic theory goes, Mr. Puzder’s beliefs are very run-of-the-mill. He goes on by making the following claims:

• Economists everywhere are all in agreement to not raise the minimum wage.
• A $15 dollar an hour minimum wage is too steep of an increase.
• A Harvard Business study found for every $1 increase to the federal minimum wage 4 to 10% of restaurants will close.
• A 2014 CBO study found raising the federal minimum wage to $15 dollars per hour would result in 500,000 jobs lost.

The first problem with these claims, is the same problem all PragerU videos have, there are no citations. Not in the videos themselves, not at the end, not in the video description, and not in the “course” transcript. For instance the host will mention a “Harvard” study, but frequently will neglect to mention the name of the study, the authors, the year, what scientific journal published it, or provide any link or other information about the study. This makes it extremely hard to verify their statements, and because it’s so common it means PragerU is either sloppy or intentionally deceptive.

See for yourself:

The second problem with PragerU’s video is it is highly partisan with several politically-charged comments, which makes it hard convince an objective observer that the ideas being presented is coming from a place of honest information sharing.

Some of the partisan comments include:

• “Progressive politicians love talking about the minimum wage. It makes them sound caring, compassionate, and concerned.”
• “The left casts the minimum wage debate as a war between employee and employer.”
• “The progressive politicians mislead voters that it is the right thing to do.”

The only way this information appears to be on-the-level is if you are coming from a far-right ideology, where there are already negative assumptions on the motives of left-of-center politicians baked into your beliefs.

A more intentionally informative video would have explained the different approaches to a federal minimum wage. It would explain the methodology of Democrats in increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour, closer to the national living wage of $16 dollars per hour, is to increase the amount of disposable income available to low skilled workers, which would then increase access to health care, food, education, as well as increase consumer spending, which drives an economy.

It could have reviewed some of the alternatives to minimum wages used in other countries, such as a Basic Income, Guaranteed Minimum Income, or Refundable Tax Credits.

But instead the video only focuses on the Republican belief that an increase in the federal minimum wage will increase a business’ costs of production, therefor leading to greater unemployment.

It’s just delivering talking points, nothing else.

Claim: Economists everywhere are all in agreement to not raise the minimum wage.

The video makes this statement in its description and as an overall theme that raising the minimum wage is just a no-brainier, and such a no-brainier it should already be assumed, with some really up-front graphics telling you raising the federal minimum wage is calculated to be “not worth the risk.”

This would be true, if not for the vast body of scientific papers published in respected peer-reviewed journals. The reality is far more complicated.

Many studies find that minimum wage laws reduce employment, and many other studies on the exact same laws find they have little or no effect on jobs. Some 60 years and hundreds of research papers from prestigious universities, government agencies and private organizations have created little consensus on the subject, academic or otherwise.

For example we can take a look at Seattle, which in many ways was the guinnia pig of minimum wage increases, and see one study by Berkeley found a net positive and another found a net negative looking at the same data.

Bottom line, there is no agreement, and this makes this statement by PragerU a lie.

Claim: A $15 dollar an hour minimum wage is too steep of an increase.

The PragerU video puts up a few graphics and makes several statements designed to shock the viewer into believing in the danger of a $15 dollar an hour federal minimum wage.

“It’s more than double the current federal rate of $7.25.” Good God!!!

What is not explained is minimum wage laws, on the local, state, and federal level, all have stages spaced out over several years, giving businesses and organizations the time to adjust.

For example Seattle’s minimum wage gradually increased only by $0.50 per hour for the first five years for small businesses with under 500 employees, and the state of California would increase their minimum wage by $0.50 cents the first year then by $1 over the next five years. This is not at all the dramatic incline like a steep mountain as communicated in the PragerU video.

And $15 dollars an hour isn’t really that big of an increase in the federal minimum wage, because it has fell behind productivity over the past 50 years. This is called the “Productivity-Pay Gap,” and what it means is we are doing more, but getting paid less relative to our output. If wages have kept up with productivity since 1970, the minimum wage would be about $20 per hour.

Again, there is no shock. There is a gradual increase over years. Just another complete misrepresentation of the truth by PragerU, otherwise known as a lie.

Claim: A Harvard Business study found for every $1 increase to the federal minimum wage 4 to 10% of restaurants will close.

This was a claim that was made without any citations, but a little searching of right–wing sites that parrot this exact claim word-for-word made it easy to find the original study which you can read for yourself here.

Reading over the Harvard Business School study entitled “Survival of the Fittest: The Impact of the Minimum Wage on Firm Exit” authored by Dara Lee Luca and Michael Luca, first we have to recognize this is a “working paper,” meaning it is a draft that contains preliminary information and had not yet been submitted to the important step in the scientific method of peer review.

This doesn’t mean because PragerU is citing a working paper means the data and conclusions being presented are invalid or wrong, but needs to be placed in context that the data and conclusions have not yet gone through the rigor and process of being double-checked by other experts in the same field that comes with every scientific study.

This important distinction is something that PragerU does not communicate to the viewer, hiding the fact that this is a draft.

Moving on to the contents of the Harvard Business School study, the premise and conclusions are actually not accurately represented in the PragerU video, which claims the study’s findings are “Each $1 increase in the minimum wage results in a 4-10% likelihood of restaurants closing.”

What the study actually did was break out restaurants in the San Francisco area depending on their Yelp reviews and see what each group’s likelihood of closing compared to if there was no minimum wage increase. What the study found was those with 5-star Yelp reviews had no impact on employment when the minimum wage increased. Those restaurants with a 3.5-star Yelp reviews were 14% more likely to go out of business when the minimum wage increased. And those with a 1-star Yelp review were 50% more likely to go out of business.

Compare the study’s actual findings with what the PragerU’s claims about the study and the two simply do not match. Restaurants with lousy Yelp reviews that were already on the verge of closing is not the same thing as all restaurants. This means that PragerU was intentionally misrepresenting the findings of the Harvard study. They are purposefully lying to the viewer.

The most telling chart in the entire Harvard Study actually helps undercut the entire premise of PragerU and conservatives on the minimum wage. When comparing restaurant closings in cities that raised their minimum wage with those that have not, the trends are virtually identical, showing no effect on employment. (Figure 2, Page 29)

Claim: A 2014 CBO study found raising the federal minimum wage to $15 dollars per hour would result in 500,000 jobs lost.

The Congressional Budget Office is an excellent source to cite, legally required to be non-partisan, used by both political parties for policy making decisions, and was a rare instance of a good citation by PragerU.

We can read the 2014 CBO report here titled, “The Effects of a Minimum-Wage Increase on Employment and Family Income“.

Again, the information contained in the CBO report does not exactly match what is being presented in the PragerU video. Only the information that is beneficial to the host is being repeated, this is a dishonest debate tactic known as “cherry picking.”

Increasing the minimum wage would have two principal effects on low-wage workers. Most of them would receive higher pay that would increase their family’s income, and some of those families would see their income rise above the federal poverty threshold. But some jobs for low-wage workers would probably be eliminated, the income of most workers who became jobless would fall substantially, and the share of low-wage workers who were employed would probably fall slightly.

The CBO is saying with “two principal effects” there will be winners and losers, but the PragerU video is only reporting on the negative effects, and not mentioning it is only to “low-wage workers.” Again, withholding information is the same as lying.

The PragerU video said 500,000 jobs would be lost but is also not telling its viewers the CBO projected multiple scenarios, a $10.10 dollar minimum wage, and a $9 minimum wage. The host only gave the job loses for the worst-case $10.10 scenario, where the $9 scenario had a much better sweet spot that minimized job losses, and even possibly job increases.

Information that would devastate their entire premise… not included.

And while any job loses in the hundred-thousand range would be painful for those families, who are more than just numbers on a chart, the CBO found that 16.5 million workers would see more money in their paychecks. That is a huge net positive that PragerU is simply refusing to inform their viewers about. By withholding key information, they are lying.

Again no one wants to be on the side that loses with a minimum wage increase, but there is a 33:1 net positive ratio PragerU is simply refusing to tell its viewers.

Conclusion

Out of the hundreds of videos on its website, the only PragerU video found so far that presents an accurate set of facts is this “course” on “Was the Civil War About Slavery?” hosted by the head of military history at West Point. And to PragerU’s credit the host correctly walks viewers through the evidence of “YES OF COURSE IT WAS!” and was even released during the height of a national argument on Confederate monuments.

However after reviewing each of the claims made in this PragerU video, it is highly partisan, highly deceptive, and should not be trusted. This is not the only PragerU video that goes out of its way to push a false narrative in order to maintain negative political assumptions, provide “talking points,” instead of presenting a honest argument.

This comes to no surprise, because Andy Puzder at the time of making this video was a CEO of companies that rely on low wage workers who would be directly impacted by a minimum wage increase. It would cut into his corporation’s billion-dollar bottom line, which would make its investors not happy. So Puzder has a strong motivation to ignore key information, and present the half of the story that financially benefits him.

The sad reality is wages have remained low in this country, lagging far below every other developed nation, while the United States’ productivity has greatly increased. Meaning we are doing more while working for less.

This is a problem.

What PragerU and Puzder are deftly doing by injecting highly partisan rhetoric and only repeating the facts that suit them is turning an up/down argument against labor and management, into a left/right argument, meanwhile
CEO pay, like Puzder’s, has increased 90 times more than your average working over the past 30 years.