Charles Mizrahi was on my radio program recently to talk about his article, “Prosperity and Generosity: The Biblical Roots of Capitalism.” Although we often talk about the Bible and capitalism, this interview was a bit different because he is Jewish and used Old Testament passages to promote the idea of free enterprise.

He wrote his article because he was so disturbed by politicians and young people bemoaning our economic system. Instead, they were calling for more government programs in a march toward socialism. He argued that history has not provided an example of more government programs and bailouts creating wealth for its citizens or resulting in more freedom.

He reminds us that often wealth and prosperity were signs of blessings from God. Deuteronomy 8:18 says, “Remember that it is the LORD your God who gives you the power to get wealth, in fulfillment of the covenant that He made on oath with your fathers, as is still the case.”

He also reminds us that wealth is not to be hoarded or to be used for self-gratification. God calls for us to be generous with the resources God has placed in our hands.

He also points to passages that call for us to be generous to the poor. We read in Deuteronomy 15:11, “There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded towards your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land.”

God intended that we use our wealth and prosperity to provide for others in need. He describes the guidance given to the Israelites in order to help those who couldn’t help themselves: the resident alien, the widow, and the orphan.

We need to hear more messages like his. He calls for us to work hard, invest, and help our neighbors based on biblical principles.

Less than two months before a national election, lawsuits are being filed to change election laws. In Georgia, the law used to require that absentee ballots that arrived after Election Day were to be set aside and eventually destroyed. A federal judge now has ordered Georgia officials to count all ballots postmarked by Election Day even if they arrive days later. A similar injunction has been filed in Pennsylvania.

A lawsuit in Ohio is challenging the need for verifying a signature. Minnesota waived a rule that absentee ballots must be signed by a witness. Lawyers for the Trump campaign have challenged that decision.

All of this legal activity is due to the fact that we may see major amount of absentee ballot rejections. The Associated Press estimated that if states reject these ballots at the same rate as the 2020 primaries, up to three times as many voters in battleground states could have their votes discarded.

A survey by NPR discovered that 558,032 absentee votes were tossed out during the 2020 primaries. For example, Wisconsin had 23,196 ballots discarded. In 2016, Donald Trump won Wisconsin by 22,748 votes.

It is easy to see where this will lead if we have a close election. The loser will challenge the fact that thousands of ballots were rejected and call for the state “to count every vote.” The debate will surely end up in the courts. That is why the editors of the Wall Street Journal asked, “Will Courts Pick the Next President?”

If you want your vote to count in this election, the best solution is to vote in-person. Second best is to get a ballot early, fill it out carefully, and mail it early.

Back in July, one social commentator concluded that even the most prestigious public-relations firms could not have come up with a more effective advertising campaign for gun manufacturers than what was happening in the streets. While riots were breaking out in our major cities, protesters were marching with “defund the police”signs. Many Americans who never planned to buy a firearm were having second thoughts.

A civilized society expects a level of law and order. It depends on police officers to safeguard the peace. An anti-gun viewpoint can’t last too long when an anti-cop message is being proclaimed from rioters throwing bricks through windows. And it’s hard to feel safe when threatening gangs move through cities and even to suburbs.

The demand for guns is greater than anyone would have imagined. The best estimates are the nearly 5 million gun sales have taken place over the last few months. There is no evidence that this surge in gun purchases will abate before November.

Mark Smith, CEO of Smith & Wesson, explains that “consumer demand for our products during the quarter still exceeded our internal manufacturing capacity levels.” The company is now running at “maximum capacity.” Many gun stores have had to resort to meeting potential customers “by appointment only.”

Gun sales would probably be much higher if it weren’t for two limitations. The first should be obvious. Demand has exceeded supply at many gun shops. Second, it is still nearly impossible in many major cities for a law-abiding citizen to purchase a handgun. The Supreme Court decisions of Heller (2008) and McDonald (2010) were supposed to remove most of the restrictions, but many still remain.

Gun control advocates have wanted to reduce the number of firearms in America. But the riots and the “defund the police” slogans are actually increasing the number of guns in this country.

During this presidential election, we will likely hear pundits talking about flipping courts. Will a reelected President Trump continue flipping courts, or will a President Biden be able to flip courts back?

When Trump took office, Democratic appointees had a majority in nine circuit courts. By contrast, Republican appointees only had a majority in four circuit courts. It is also worth mentioning that judges appointed by a Republican president don’t always render a conservative opinion, while nearly all judges appointed by a Democratic president do render a liberal opinion.

In the last few years, President Trump has managed to flip three more circuit courts. Those would be the Third Circuit Court (Delaware New Jersey, and Pennsylvania), the Eleventh Circuit Court (Alabama, Florida, and Georgia) and the Second Circuit Court (New York, Connecticut, and Vermont).

If President Trump is reelected, it is likely that he would be able to appoint judges that would eventually flip other circuit courts. That would include the Fourth Circuit Court (Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and the Carolinas) and the Ninth Circuit Court (California and other western states).

It is likely that many judges are waiting to see how the election turns out before deciding whether they might take senior status and retire. This allows judges to retire with their current salary which they receive even if they join a law firm for an additional salary.

A President Biden along with a Vice-President Harris would want to flip these circuit courts back to where they were when President Obama left office. They would want to push through nominees that would be very different from the ones put forward by the Trump Administration the last few years.

The most lasting legacy of a president is who he puts on the court. This presidential election will determine which way these courts flip.

Months of legitimate protests have sadly devolved into riots and violence in many of our major cities. Hundreds of police officers have been injured, dozens of people have been killed, and billions of dollars of property have been destroyed. Why did this happen?

The spark was a video of the death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police. But the reaction was much greater in this tragic death than any other. Victor Davis Hanson observes that the rioters “trying to burn down a Portland police precinct – with police barricaded inside – or looting the high-end boutiques of Chicago’s Magnificent Mile” does NOT appear to be driven by Floyd’s death.

One explanation is the perfect-storm of the fear of COVID-19 coupled with the lockdowns. Millions of youth sequestered in their apartments and basements unemployed and worried about their dismal career options wanted to vent their rage at the world.

Others point of the fact that it is an election year with tensions high about the possible reelection or defeat of President Trump. Still others point to groups like Antifa and Black Lives Matter that took advantage of the protests and used the turmoil in the streets to advance their agenda.

Hanson argues that “None of these explanations are mutually exclusive.” But they don’t explain the senseless vandalism of the “statutes of Ulysses S. Grant and Frederick Douglas, and the World War II Memorials.” The mob in the street is engaged in a cultural revolution. By definition, cultural revolutions are “incoherent and nihilist.”

We have seen this before in the French Revolution and in Mao’s Cultural Revolution. The mob in the street promotes anarchy and violence but isn’t trying to form a more perfect union. It’s often violence for violence sake.

A few weeks ago, one of my radio guests brought up a potential problem in this election that I had never considered. Fortunately, this is something we can fix, with your help. We may not have enough poll workers at the polls.

Many states will face a shortage of thousands of poll workers this time because so many of them are older and face a potentially higher risk for the coronavirus. That may cause them to cancel their plans to work the polls for the election.

The process of attrition has been taking place for some time. Older retirees are the most likely demographic to work in America’s polling places. But many of them are getting too old to work or even have died. They should have been replaced by younger workers, but that is not happening and looks like they will be shorthanded.

The citizens working the polls usually do it out of a sense of civil duty. It isn’t very attractive to the younger generation who don’t have much interest in working twelve-hour days for what is often less than minimum wage.

In a recent article, John Fund estimates that there we should have about 900,000 poll workers. They are responsible for checking in voters, getting them the proper ballot, and answered questions. A shortage of poll workers could mean longer lines and many delays.

The Pew Research Center reports that a majority (58%) of poll workers in the last election (2018) were age 61 or older. That is a demographic that is more vulnerable to the coronavirus and therefore less likely to want to work the polls.

This is where you can help. You may be willing to work in the polls or know young people who would like to do so. You can contact your local political party and find out when the next training will take place. We need poll workers for this election, and you can volunteer and make a difference.

One of the Democratic arguments against President Trump is that he mismanaged the pandemic. Dr. Merrill Matthews asks, “Would a Democrat have managed the pandemic better?” He looks at four criticisms.

First, was the response too slow? On March 2, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo assured the people of his state that “the general risk remains low in New York.” On that same day, President Trump was meeting with major pharmaceutical company executives to speed the process of getting a vaccine. And it is worth mentioning that on that day there were 90 COVID-19 cases and six deaths.

Eleven days later (on March 13) President Trump declared the pandemic a national emergency. You could argue that he should have done it earlier, but eleven days doesn’t look like negligent procrastination.

Second, critics say Trump didn’t listen to the experts. But the medical experts were often wrong. Surgeon General Jerome Adams wrote that Americans should “STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing the general public from catching coronavirus.”

A third criticism of Trump has been the number of people filing for unemployment. But there is a clear connection between the shutdowns implemented by the governors and subsequent unemployment. Usually it was the Democratic governors who supported stricter and longer shutdowns.

Finally, there is a US death rate. America has the eighth highest death rate per capita. The four states with the highest death rates are: New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. They have Democratic governors and have higher death rates because of a disproportionate number of deaths in nursing homes.

Mistakes have been made at the federal and state level because the virus was novel and unpredictable. I don’t think someone from a different party could have done much better.

In the past, both Republican and Democratic candidates have talked about abortion. Sometimes Republicans might avoid the topic, but rarely did Democrats. The assumption a few decades ago was the pro-choice was a winning theme, while being pro-life sometimes seemed like a liability.

The two national political conventions reversed the perspective on abortion. The topic never was mentioned in the Democratic National Convention. Abortion and pro-life comments surfaced many times in the Republican National Convention. The convention even featured a lengthy speech by Abby Johnson, who is a former Planned Parenthood clinic director and now a pro-life activist who founded the group “And Then There Were None.”

In her speech she talked rather graphically about abortion because she recognized that most Americans “can’t even conceive of the barbarity.” In abortion clinics, they have to piece together the remains of babies. She even talked about the smell of abortion and asked, “Did you know abortion even had a small?’ Her speech went a long way in educating the American public.

The silence about abortion at the Democratic Convention may have something to do with recent polls. The current view expressed by Democratic leaders is that abortion must be legal through all nine months of pregnancy. Americans do not support such a view. While millions of Americans may believe that abortion should be legal, you can only find about 13 percent of Americans who support abortion through all nine months. And only about 18 percent of self-identified Democrats support such a view.

The Democratic platform and most leading Democratic leaders also call for taxpayer-support of abortion. That isn’t a popular view with most Americans. Nearly 80 percent oppose taxpayer-funded abortion, including about three-quarters of Democrats.

All of this suggests that it will be Republican candidates more than Democratic candidates who will be talking about abortion this election season.

Should professional basketball players be allowed to boycott their games? Of course. Current NBA players, along with players in the past, have used the forum to address social issues. Technically, the decision last month was probably best described as a strike rather than a boycott. It led to other professional teams cancelling their games as well.

In a well-written and thoughtful piece, Andrew McCarthy argues that the action may be somewhat illogical, but certainly allowable. “For a work stoppage to be successful, it has to withhold something the potential consumer wants.” As it puts it, the “sand is running out of the hourglass.”

Most spectators turn to sports to get away from politics and politicized issues, at least for a few hours. It is an oasis from the turmoil. But the oasis is disappearing. Much of it surfaced over “The Star-Spangled Banner” that wasn’t even the national anthem until 1931. And it wasn’t even routinely played before sporting events until World War II.

He says he wishes that “patriotic displays were not controversial, but fine: If playing the anthem sullies the experience for a sizable number of fans, let’s not do it.” But the biggest issue is whether we should allow protests at the game. The owners and NBA have decided to indulge the behavior, for now.

The players are free to kneel before the game or even boycott a game. But the spectators are also free to boycott the league and tune them out. Freedom works both ways. McCarthy says he loves sports, but sporting events are just one of many things he enjoys.

During this playoff run, the NBA players are in a bubble because of the pandemic. That means they play to lots of empty seats. If they keep up this behavior, they will be playing to lots of empty seats next year.