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Monday Miscellany, 9/14/26

Monday Miscellany, 9/14/26

Last updated on: September 14, 2026 at 7:59 am by Gene Veith

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Monday Miscellany, 9/14/26 2026-09-14T07:59:49-04:00 Gene Veith

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Trump’s bribe. Pro-choice after birth. Outlawing group prayer in private homes.

Trump’s Bribe

President Trump told the American people that if the Republicans keep their majorities in both the House and Senate in the midterm elections, he will give every adult $5,000.

According to 2025 numbers, there are 269,763,509 adults 18 and over. Giving each of them $5,000 would cost $1,348,817,545,000. That is, about $1.35 trillion.

That is much more than the $916.6 billion we pay for for national defense. It would nearly double our $1.8 trillion federal deficit. Our accumulated national debt is $40 trillion.

This is not coming from the president’s own pocket, of course–not even the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, whose fortune has fallen to $904 billion, has that much money–but from the U.S. Treasury.

The president is describing these payments as “Trump Dividends,” a kickback to the American people of the money our nation has earned from tariffs. Never mind that the tariffs have only raised $349 billion since the president started imposing them. And never mind that dividends only get paid when a company is running a surplus. As Charles C. W. Cooke points out,

A dividend is money a company pays to its shareholders, usually from its profits. The United States is not a company; the voters are not its shareholders; and, to put it lightly, there are no profits to be shared.

Isn’t this money-for-votes scheme a bribe? Maybe not technically, since the money would go to everybody, not just those who vote the president’s way. But it is intended to persuade voters to elect Republicans, promising that if they do, they will get paid. So, yes, I’d consider it morally to be a bribe.

Bribery is a vice that corrupts both the giver of the bribe and the taker of the bribe. The Bible says quite a bit on the subject. Though Ezra 4:4 cites the evil of “the people of the land” in bribing Persian officials to prevent the Jews from returning to the Promised Land, most of the Bible’s teaching focuses on how wrong it is to take a bribe:

And you shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds the clear-sighted and subverts the cause of those who are in the right. (Exodus 23:8).

You shall not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of the righteous. (Deuteronomy 16:18).

So to apply this, wise people won’t see clearly and their righteous cause will be undermined because they want the $5,000.

Pro-Choice after Birth

Lindsay Clancy strangled her three children–5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson, and 8-month-old Callan–then tried to commit suicide by jumping out a window, leaving her paralyzed. Her defense was postpartum depression and psychosis. Lots of women sympathized with her on social media and demonstrated on her behalf outside the courtroom, focusing on the woes of motherhood.

Her trial ended with a mistrial, with all of the jurors but one seeking to acquit her. One juror said of the holdout, “He had the hardest time getting over the fact that Lindsay viciously killed her children.” The other jurors could get over that fact, but the law required a unanimous verdict. Now another mother has killed her two-year-old son, saying she was “inspired” by Clancy.

The whole story is tragic all around. There is such thing as not guilty by reason of insanity, so maybe that’s what we have here. But what I’d like to discuss here is an article for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation entitled How different would Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial look if it happened in Canada?

It turns out, Canada–like the U.K., parts of Australia, and some European countries–made infanticide a lesser offense than murder or manslaughter. A mother who kills her baby faces a maximum sentence of no more than five years in prison.

Journalist Natalie Stechyson quotes University of British Columbia law professor Isabel Grant:

Technically, in Canada, Clancy could have raised infanticide as a defence for the murder of Callan, who was eight months old, said Grant, the criminal law professor at UBC. But the killing of Clancy’s older children could not be defended as infanticide even if she hadn’t recovered from the birth of the youngest child when she killed them, she added.

“That is a shortcoming in the Canadian law.”

“A shortcoming in Canadian law” that the lesser crime of infanticide wouldn’t apply to her children who were not, in fact, infants, to 5-year-old Cora and 3-year-old Dawson? Does the professor believe that mothers, like the paterfamilias of ancient Rome, should have absolute power of life or death for all of her children, no matter how old they are?

If not, why not, given the power of life or death the law has given her over the child in her womb? Given the “pro-choice” argument for abortion, what if a woman no longer chooses to be the mother of her two-year-0ld or her teenager?

Already, Canada and much of the British commonwealth value a baby’s life less than that of an older child. And many of Lindsay Clancy’s supporters value the mother’s life more than that of her children of whatever age.

Nellie Bowles of the Free Press, (usually a humor writer) who discusses the Canadian article, comments:

A shortcoming in the law, says the law professor, is that a mom might be in jail longer than five years if she kills a bunch of kindergartners since the postpartum might not carry over to each killing. Maybe postpartum should last until the kid’s 18, right? Maybe moms—if they’re under a lot of pressure and like, super, super stressed and changing Zoloft dosages and can’t figure out the Snoo—should be able to kill her offspring at any age? It’s pro-choice taken to the nth degree.

Outlawing Group Prayer in Private Homes

The Supreme Court will take up a case to determine whether or not municipal governments can prohibit citizens from hosting prayer meetings, Bible studies, or other religious services in their home.

In 2021, an Orthodox Jew named Daniel Grand of University Heights, Ohio, an affluent Cleveland suburb, invited 12 of his friends to his house for a sabbath prayer gathering. Jewish law requires at least 10 men, which constitutes a minyan, to be present at all worship services. Reporter Cami Mondeaux tells what happened:

In January 2021, Grand sent an email to a dozen friends inviting them to his home for prayer as part of a minyan, a “threshold requirement for the most sacred acts of Jewish communal worship.” However, when city officials were made aware of his plans, they issued a cease-and-desist demanding that he obtain a permit that would designate his home as a “place of religious assembly.”

Grand then canceled the religious gathering and submitted a permit application, according to court documents. But several neighbors opposed the effort because they did “not want our neighborhood labeled as Jewish.”

Grand later withdrew his application because he didn’t want to be part of an “inevitably hostile public spectacle.” But he also noted that completing the permit would have required him and his family to vacate the home after it was labeled a place of religious practice.

Many communities have zoning laws that restrict where “houses of worship” can be, as well as other regulations limiting the number of visitors to a home due to concerns about traffic and parking. But Orthodox Jews walk to their worship services, not being allowed to drive on the sabbath.

Edward Blum and Rabbi Cary Kozberg, writing about the case for National Review, point out that “Grand’s complaint alleges that the city has enforced its permit requirement against home gatherings of Orthodox Jews and no one else — poker and bridge games, book clubs, game nights, and sorority and fraternity gatherings were never targeted for enforcement.” It’s pretty clear why: the new anti-semitism now in vogue.

A federal court ruled that Grand had to go through the permit process before he could sue the city, even though this meant that if the city approved the permit, he would have to move out of his house.

The Supreme Court will hear the case — Grand v. City of University Heights, Ohio —in its new term, which starts in October.

Grand v. City of University Heights

Lindsay Clancy case

midterm elections 2026

pro-choice arguments

religious liberty

Trump Dividends

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