Hillary's Honor

            The Administration would love for the Benghazi triple scandal to go away. The White House did a good job of keeping the truth from the public before the elections, but congressional committees won't let the dog lie. Slowly but surely the truth is coming out as evidence of gross misconduct seeps to the surface.

            One by one, the people responsible for the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi are falling like dominos. Only hours after the revelations in the Pickering report, four State Department employees tendered their resignations. But that's only Scandal No. 1, which was the failure to provide adequate security protection in Benghazi.
            Scandal No. 2 was the failure of the White House and the Department of Defense to come to the rescue of the Americans who were under fire. These cowards saw in real time what was happening in Benghazi and did nothing.
            Scandal No. 3 came in the form of brazen and calculated lies about how the murders occurred and who committed them. The first player ousted in this phase was Ambassador Rice who knowingly lied on five TV talk shows. Another was General Petraeus who didn't help his cause by committing adultery. There will be more as the investigations continue.
            All through these proceedings two individuals remain untouched, protected by the veil of secrecy and a skilful political cover-up: President Obama and Hillary Clinton.
            Obama may survive because there are lots of people willing to fall of their swords for him. But let's not forget that he was the one principally responsible for blaming the attacks on spontaneous reactions to an anti-Islamic video, something he knew from Day One wasn't true.
To this day he has not acknowledged his supreme role in the cover-up.
            It is now Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's turn in the barrel. She was a prime player in all three scandals. At least she took full responsibility for the security fiasco. But what does full responsibility mean if there are no consequences? In any other civilized country the person who accepts such responsibility likely resigns as a matter of honor. That's what Hillary should have done. Perhaps she doesn't understand the meaning of honor.
            Now the congressional committees want her to testify. She doesn't. If she did, she would have to admit her culpability or lie under oath. Although the person William Safire once called a pathological liar is no stranger to prevarication, it would be better to avoid testifying. The committees, however, are not backing off. She will have to testify. The question is when. Not now, because if she testified now she would be doing it as the Secretary of State and might be forced to resign in disgrace. That wouldn't be good for the leading candidate for President in 2016. If she could put it off until a new Congress is sworn in, maybe the newly formed committees would be willing to forgive and forget.
            So let's fake an illness due to a fainting spell and a concussion. That should work.           

Sandy's Victims Finally Saved by Obama

            By now everyone has seen videos of angry people on Staten Island, Long Island, and the Jersey Shore screaming at the cameras and pleading for help that wasn't coming. These were the victims of Sandy who saw their homes washed away, people who had nowhere to live, people who were surviving literally with the clothes on their backs. They needed help desperately.

            We can also recall the picture of President Obama with his arm around Governor Christie's shoulder. He was taking the lead on disaster relief by directing FEMA to provide whatever these people needed. We all love a president who takes charge, don't we? Except that this president's promises were empty and disingenuous. He was promising what he knew he couldn't deliver because FEMA was broke. Very little help came.
            The governors of New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut have estimated it would take $82 billion to repair the damage caused by Sandy. So once more President Obama took the lead and sent a $60 billion bill to Congress.  Let's not ask why the bill was for only three quarters of the amount asked for. And let' s not quibble about timing: it's only been seven weeks since Sandy struck. Remember Katrina? It took only days to come up with $60 billion for that storm's victims.
            But something must have happened to the bill on the way to the Hill, because by the time it got there it contained only $12 billion for Sandy's victims. The rest was a bag of goodies. You might call it fulfillment of the President's campaign wish list. Or another stimulus bill in disguise.
            Let's see.  How about another $9.7 billion for the National Flood Insurance Program, or $3.2 billion for erosion control, or $17 billion for the Community Development Fund, or $15 billion for HUD block grants. Poor people need a place to live, after all. And let's not forget the hungry: how about we give $3 billion to food banks.
            Wait. Federal buildings in Washington need fixing up. We need only $3 billion for that. And let's plant some trees ($24 million), get some new cars ($9), and Amtrak could use another $32 million. And let's put aside $150 million for fishery disasters in faraway places like Samoa.
            Oh, yes. Almost forgot. Let's give the Secretary of Health and Human Services $200 million for her to use at her discretion.
            What about the $12 billion for Sandy's victims? Well, the CBO estimates that about two-thirds of that money might not get spent until fiscal year 2015. What? Don't those poor people need the money now?
            Meanwhile, President Obama is looking for hundreds of billions more from his favorite piñatas, the rich. The money has to come from somewhere. Cut spending? Now wait just a minute. You don't really mean that.

Risky Behavior: Who Pays

            Is risky behavior to be rewarded with the assurance that its financial consequences will be borne by society?

            A motorcyclist named Jason riding without a helmet crashes and fractures his skull. His injuries require a series of operations by the finest brain surgeon in the land at a cost of half a million dollars. He doesn't have medical insurance. Who pays?
            Louisa becomes morbidly obese by the age of 25, develops diabetes which requires the amputation of both legs, and dies of kidney failure at age 35 after many months on dialysis. Her medical care tops $400,000. She comes from a needy family and has been on Medicaid since she was a child. Who pays?
            Tommy takes up smoking at age thirteen, hard drugs at eighteen. He goes into male prostitution to support his habit and becomes HIV positive. He passes it on to a dozen partners. He ends up with AIDS and requires lengthy hospitalization until he dies of cancer. He has no insurance. Who pays? And who pays for all the others he infected?
            There are millions of stories like these. People like Jason, Louisa, and Tommy populate our emergency rooms, critical care units, and operating rooms in every hospital in the country. Hospitals don't question the risky behavior of their patients; it's not their job to preach sermons on individual responsibility. And they will get paid either through Medicaid, Medicare, or private insurance. No-pays and shortfalls will be passed on in the form of higher treatment costs. No matter how, society ends up footing the bill. And let's not even get started on higher malpractice insurance and unnecessary procedures to ward off tort lawyers who make a living trolling for victims.
            The point is that it all starts with individuals who do not take responsibility for the consequences of their own choices. And it's a system that is perpetuated by the belief that there will always be someone else to pick up the tab.
            Is it any wonder that we are becoming a nation of takers?

           

Twinkees and Such

            It's all about spending. SPENDING.

            Why can't the administration and its media cohorts get this? The problem with our crippling national debt is not insufficient revenue. It's that we are spending too much. For every dollar the federal government takes in, it spends $23. This is insane. No family managing a budget would ever do such a thing. So what should we do about it?
            Everybody except irresponsible legislators like Senator Dick Durbin agrees that entitlements must be reduced. But how?
            First, we have to come to an understanding that cradle-to-grave security is not what our Founders had in mind when they drafted our Constitution and defined the role of the federal government. This idea started with Woodrow Wilson, blossomed under FDR, and found full fruition with Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. Since then, we have just been piling on the benefits. Forget the Founding Fathers.
            OK. A rich nation like ours should take care of its less fortunate. But a safety net is meant to catch the falling. It's not meant to prevent falling. A welfare family collecting $60,000 a year in benefits is not about to hit bottom; a 300-pound woman who uses Food Stamps to fill her shopping basket with Twinkees, potato chips and Mountain Dew is not likely to be on the verge of starvation; the retired Long Island railroad worker who cashes his disability check on the way to the bowling alley is probably not experiencing debilitating pain; and a man who voted for Obama because "He will take care of me" is surely not a go-getter who values self-reliance over dependency.
            Legislators created this mess of fraud and abuse, and it's up to legislators to clean it up. But so far the only consistent message coming from the Left is to tax the rich. Heaven forbid Senator Durbin should ever offend the slaves on his Illinois plantation. Even proposals like Paul Ryan's fall far short of what it will take to stop the madness.
            The only weapon Conservatives have is in the House of Representatives...if our lawmakers  would only be willing to use it. It is the power of the purse. Why does President Obama want the authority to raise the debt ceiling without going through Congress? Because he knows that Congress can stop his spending by refusing to raise that limit. Senator Lindsay Graham has already said that he will not vote to increase the debt limit unless the President puts forth a serious and comprehensive plan to reduce entitlements. I hope his colleagues in the House get the message and take the pledge.
            Republicans have nothing to lose. They are already being blamed for everything, so why not use the only weapon in their arsenal that has a shot at forcing real reform, even if it means bringing the federal government to a standstill. They lost the election. They're wounded and bleeding. But they are not dead.

Morsi and Obama

            President Obama must be rubbing his hands in glee watching Republicans fight among themselves over Speaker Boehner's proposal to avoid the fiscal cliff. The sore point is Boehner's offer to raise $800 billion in taxes over the next ten years. It's only half of what Obama wants, but far more than most conservatives are willing to give.

            What sticks in conservatives' craw is that Boehner's offer was in response to the President's plan delivered through Treasury Secretary Geithner. This plan was an absolute insult to Republicans. In fact, it mirrored the budget the President submitted to Congress earlier this year and was voted down unanimously by the Democratically controlled Senate. What gall!
            Now that he has won re-election, President Obama thinks he has a mandate to do whatever the hell he wants. He even demands that he be given the authority to bypass Congress in raising the debt ceiling. He is clearly announcing his intention to spend as much money as he wants, taxpayers be damned.
            Meanwhile, Obama's plans to cut spending are laughable. He refuses to offer any concrete proposals to reduce entitlements, which is a must if we are ever to get our debt crisis under control.
            I'm struck by the parallels between Egypt's President Morsi and President Obama. Both were elected democratically; both see their election as a clear path to absolute power. Morsi announced that he is no longer subject to the Egyptian Judiciary; Obama is bypassing Congress with executive orders that are constitutionally questionable and now wants a free spending hand.
            Morsi was chased out of town by a mob of 100,000 people who voted for democracy, not tyranny; Obama has no idea what Americans are capable of when they find themselves plunged over a fiscal cliff and into Taxmageddon and a deep recession. You think the Tea Party was aroused? Even the dunces who voted for him will wake up when they realize what this president's Socialist policies are doing to the future of their children and grandchildren.

Social Mobility

Some years ago, on a business trip to Mexico City, I was hosted by one of Mexico's most prominent publishers. I have fond memories of a meal we shared with his family at a restaurant that would put the proliferating Mexican eateries in our area to shame. What I remember most, though, is the conversation we had on societal mobility.

In brief, my host marveled at the upward mobility of the American worker. How is it possible, he wanted to know, for Americans to change jobs so often or to move up the ladder to management and executive positions? By contrast, he explained that in his country such mobility is practically impossible. His sons, for instance, were sure to follow him in the publishing business; there was absolutely no question about their future careers. The same applied at all levels of business and industry, as career changes and promotion from within were extremely rare. Because there is little opportunity for advancement, the poor remain poor, the middle class remains small and stagnant, and the wealthy maintain a privileged and closed society.

There are parallels in social stagnation all over the world, not just in Mexico. The shining exception is the United States, the land of opportunity. No other country (except Canada to some degree) enjoys the freedom for an individual to develop, to create, to innovate, to succeed. Most of the workers in low-paying jobs today will advance to better-paying jobs tomorrow. If they don't, it's not because of the lack of opportunity. Unfortunately, this seems to be changing.

The shocking increase in families on Welfare, Disability, Medicaid, Food Stamps, and Unemployment is more than just the result of a poor economy. To me, we're seeing the permanent effects of a nanny state that is creating a new form of slavery, the slavery of government dependency. As I described in a previous letter, there is a growing class of people in this country who are content to let the government take care of them rather than seeking to advance through their own personal initiative. They have abandoned ambition in favor of dependency. If this isn't a new form of slavery, then what is it?

I submit that we are indeed seeing a fundamental change in America, one sought and championed by the likes of Barack Obama. It is the abandonment of a purer liberalism that empathized with the poor, decried oppression and injustice, and championed equality, in favor of a corrupt liberalism whose fraudulent compassion  values the poor only for their votes.

           

A Royal Funk

            It is the day after the rout, and I have been in an all-day funk. I simply cannot believe that my fellow Americans re-elected the worst president of my lifetime.

            Obamacare, Solyndra, Fast and Furious, Benghazi, sustained unemployment, massive deficits, falling wages, depressed housing, high taxes, failed energy policy, failed economic policiy, failed Middle East policy, failure everywhere. What does it take to recognize incompetence? Yet, there they were: the adoring crowds, tears of joy steaming down their faces.
            White males, married women, seniors, Evangelicals, plus most of the people in the country's red-colored geography voted Republican. But they were no match for the massive one-sided turnout in the blue states of the Northeast, the Rust Belt, and the West Coast. We have seen it before: there are two Americas. Except for a handful of battleground states, both red and blue states went to huge majorities.
            How do we explain a solid Republican majority in the House and a preponderance of Republicans in governors' mansions, facing an impregnable Democratic majority in the Senate and a plurality of blue voters for the presidency? Is the nation doomed  by unbreachable divisions?
            Will it ever change? What are chances the two extremes will come together to solve the huge problems we face? On the one hand we have a president who has divided the country by demonizing the rich to justify his redistributive policies and create a permanent dependent class of reliable voters. On the other hand, we have a Republican Establishment that cannot shake the image that it spurns the pleas of immigrants, unmarried women, and the poor, while  favoring millionaires and fat cats on Wall Street. This is not a formula for comity.
            The last four years have not been good. But they will look great compared to what is coming. We are faced with Taxmageddon, Sequestration, rising taxes, increased spending, more business-killing regulations, a $20 trillion debt, and an unrelenting march to a European-style socialism. Yet, the media, with few exceptions, will continue to mute its criticism. It will not find fault with the Senate nor the White House. Instead, with Bush fading in the distance, it will blame the intransigence of the House and the greed of special interests as we sink into a longer and deeper recession.
            Until yesterday I was an optimist. Today?

A Tale of Two Scandals

            We are witnessing two enormous scandals that should be having a direct bearing on the outcome of this election but are not.

            The first scandal is the Benghazi cover-up. The facts are in. Our Libyan ambassador was denied the adequate protection that he asked for repeatedly before the anniversary of 9/11. Then, when the attack on our consulate came and our personnel on the ground pleaded for help, it was denied three times. Consequently, our ambassador and three other brave Americans died.
            The decision to deny additional security forces before 9/11 was made by the State Department.  Secretary Clinton has accepted responsibility. But the denial of assistance during the attack had to have been made by the President. He and his security advisors knew in real time what was happening on the ground; they also had the military forces ready to intervene. But the President said no. Yet, when asked directly whether he had made that call, he refused to answer.
            As Senator McCain has said, this was either a case of incompetence or a cover-up for political purposes. I think it was both. Worse, it was a gross dereliction of duty by the President of the United States whose first obligation is the protection of American citizens. Muslim terrorists murdered four Americans in Benghazi, but blood in on the hands of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Leon Panetta, and our military and intelligence people as well. This is a scandal of unparalleled dimensions.
            The second scandal is the refusal of mainstream media to cover this story. Fox News sits virtually alone in doggedly pursuing the facts and exposing the culpability of the White House. Unsurprisingly, all attempts by Fox News to interview  key players in this affair have been denied. As an example close to home, The Virginian-Pilot, southeastern Virginia's major newspaper, has not printed a single word on this scandal since Fox News broke the story. Nothing. Not one word.
            There is no denying that major newspaper and television outlets are in the tank for Barack Obama. This is not surprising, since some 85% of their so-called journalists admit to favoring liberal candidates. But is there no limit to liberal bias? What ever happened to journalism's integrity, its fairness, its search for the truth? When media's principles are corrupted for political gain, whom can we turn to for honest reporting?
            Who is more culpable? The one with blood on his hands? Or the one who witnesses the crime and says nothing?

Lies and Deceit

            Hypocrisy, duplicity, deceit, fraud, spin, lies. I cannot pick out a single word that fully describes the Obama administration's behavior over the Benghazi incident. I would only add the word chutzpah after listening to President Obama take offense at any suggestion that his administration was playing politics.

            Here's how I see it. The President was so busy campaigning that he never took an interest in the signs of a surging Al-Qaida in Libya. He may have been told of security issues at the embassy and the consulate, but he wasn't listening. When his neglect blew up in his face on 9/11, his first instinct was to insulate himself from political fallout. Let the cover-up begin.
            It is now clear that the President, by his own admission in the second debate, knew that  the killings in Benghazi were the result of a planned  terrorist attack. Yet, he permitted, and may personally have directed, Ambassador Rice and Jay Carney to lie about it. For weeks he himself failed to acknowledge the truth by suggesting on The View and David Letterman as well as to the United Nations that anger over a video was the cause of spontaneous uprisings all over the world as well as the murders in Benghazi. This was deceit on an international scale.
            Why would the President promote such falsehoods? Let's look at the circumstances. The President for months had been bragging that Osama was dead and Al-Qaida  was on the run. Spiking the football so often on bin-Laden is much more likely to have enraged Muslims than a video that nobody had seen or known about until our embassy in Cairo apologized for it. Blaming the video was a deceitful ploy to distract us from the fact that Al-Qaida was resurgent all over the world and especially in Libya. This truth, if admitted by Obama, would have been damaging to his re-election. Hence, the full-blown campaign of spin and lies by Obama's team.
            Blame the intelligence community for incomplete reporting; blame the State Department for refusing to increase security; blame Romney for politicizing the issue; blame the video; blame freedom of speech. But note that in the second debate the President did not identify the terrorists as Muslim extremists. And note that he no longer mentions in his stump speeches that Al-Qaida is on the run. Why? Because he would have to admit that his policies on the Middle East have been an abject failure. He would have to admit that Al-Qaida is stronger than ever, that his Arab Spring has been a capitulation to the Muslim Brotherhood, that any hopes for democracy in the area are fading in the face of an inexorably ascendant Sharia rule.
            In short, our president, a man who has publicly professed his Islamic faith, cannot bring himself to believe that real power in the Muslim world is gradually being ceded to extremists who want to kill us. Thus, he cannot take responsibility for what happened in Benghazi. And he lacks the moral fiber to tell the truth to an enlightened electorate ready to pull the voting booth lever on his failed presidency.

Shamful

            Benghazi has dominated the news over the last few weeks and is likely to continue to grab headlines until the elections. It is clear that the administration has not been honest with the American people and is hoping that the whole story will not get out before voters go to the polls.

            While Obama's campaign was quick to accuse Romney of politicizing the issue, it has been shameless in spinning, obfuscating, and flat-out lying to protect the President. But it is the president himself who has been the worst offender.
            On the day after the 9/11 attack on our consulate in Benghazi, an attack that took the lives of four Americans, including our Ambassador,  top members of the intelligence community came together at the White House to present a brief on the previous day's tragedy. President Obama did not even bother to attend. Instead, he boarded Air Force One to fly to Las Vegas for a fund-raiser.
            This, to me, is the most egregious dereliction of duty by a president in my lifetime. It is the first duty of a president to protect the country and its citizens. Obama has piously asserted that United States ambassadors are his people: as he has said, he appoints them, he knows them, he knows their families. Yet, Ambassador Stevens's body wasn't even cold when Obama disdained to question his intelligence experts about what happened. His priority was to win the election, and nothing could get in the way of a fund-raiser.
            President Obama has spent the last six months flying all over the country to make campaign speeches and collect money for his election coffers. He has made over 200 of these trips, more than any other president in history. All the while, he has missed almost all of his intelligence briefings and been mostly absent from the White House. How can he claim to have been working for the American people when his all-consuming priority has clearly been his re-election?
            Some things can be forgiven. President Obama's shameful choice on 9/12 is not one of them.

           

He's No Roosevelt

            It is often said that history repeats itself. If this old saw is true, we should search the past for the wisdom necessary to deal with perilous times such as these.

            I have long been an admirer of Winston Churchill, who led the British effort to resist and eventually to defeat Hitler. One of his greatest achievements was to persuade Franklin
Delano Roosevelt to join him in that effort. It is not an exaggeration to say that these two men saved the world.
            A study of the cooperation between these two giants to defeat Nazism can provide useful lessons for us today. The circumstances parallel those of today in a striking yet alarming way.
            In 1940 Britain stood alone among Western European powers against a Germany that had swept all military resistance off the map. In fact, Britain faced imminent invasion itself. But Hitler chose to invade Russia instead. This gave Churchill the time he needed to look to America for the arms and supplies he needed to build up Britain's defenses. FDR found a way to do it, first with the Lend-Lease program and then with a full conversion of America's manufacturing might to the production of weapons of war. Together, Churchill and Roosevelt prevailed.
            Today, Israel is surrounded by Islamists who seek its annihilation. It desperately needs the backing of the United States to fend off Iran and the fanatic Islamists rising to power on all sides. But can Israel count on us?  
            It is clear to me that President Obama, unlike Roosevelt, is not willing to give Israel America's full support. Should regional conflicts erupt into all-out war, I doubt that Obama will deploy America's arsenal in defense of Israel. The signs are all there.
            In the four years of his presidency, Obama has cultivated a friendship with Islam, but not with Israel. He traveled extensively throughout the Middle East on his apology tour during which he praised Islam, signaled his support for Muslim causes, and bowed to the Saudi king. But, during his entire presidency he has not visited Israel,  his number one ally. Not even once. Further, every meeting with Premier Netanyahu had been contentious and frosty, to say the least. When Netanyahu requested a face to face meeting with Obama when he came to the United Nations in late September, Obama told him he was too busy. Not too busy, of course, for fundraisers and for appearances on David Letterman and The View. This has not escaped the notice of Islamists.           
            If anything, Obama's policies of leading from behind in Libya and non-intervention in Syria have emboldened jihadists and America haters everywhere, as we have seen on the anniversary of 9/11. Our enemies know they have nothing to fear from a weak America. Meanwhile, this administration if falling all over itself to apologize for hurting Islam's feelings. As the caskets of four dead Americans slain in Benghazi are laid to rest, and American flags are being burned across the Muslim world, Obama minimizes these events as "bumps in the road."
            How will our Islam-loving president characterize Iranian missiles raining down on Tel Aviv? More "bumps in the road"?
            A beleaguered Netanyahu may remind us of Churchill. But as Muslims around the world desecrate our flag, stone our embassies, and kill our representatives,  President Obama's weakness and lack of resolve tell us that he most certainly is no Roosevelt.          

Platform Follies

            Former President Bill Clinton gave a masterful speech at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte on September 5th. Once again he showed that he has no equal in political oratory, although I couldn't help recalling that the finger he wagged at us throughout the speech was the same finger he wagged when he denied having sex with Monica Lewinsky. Be that as it may, his persuasive arguments in favor of President Obama's reelection made us believe that the President's multiple failures were actually successes. There was no fault to be found in a dismal economic record, intractable unemployment, and a $16 trillion debt.

            Clinton needed to revive the fractious atmosphere on the convention floor after the embarrassing vote on the Democratic platform. First, Los Angeles Mayor Villaraigosa failed after three tries to secure a two-thirds voice vote to approve the platform. Then he brazenly lied and declared the vote passed, producing a chorus of boos from the delegates. That's when President Obama stepped in.
            The issues in contention were dual exclusions from the platform. The first was the absence of any mention of God, which was an affront to people of faith, especially black Baptist ministers. The second was failing to affirm Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, which angered Jewish voters and other firm supporters of Israel.
            So what did Obama do? He forced the platform committee to put God and Jerusalem back into the party platform. His aides scurried to explain that Obama had been unaware of the original platform omissions, that they did not reflect Obama's real positions, and that they were the result of some kind of technical glitch. All lies.
            We know that Obama is not a religious person in the traditional sense. Oh, he has strong beliefs. He believes that government is the only god, the source of all goodness, and he is its anointed Messiah. People no longer need the God of religion... except maybe Allah, of course..
            On that score, we know that Obama is a Muslim. In spite of all his efforts to prevent the TV replay of speeches in which he professes his Muslim faith, he cannot prevent the Internet from doing so. We know of his support for a Palestinian state, for his coziness with the Muslim Brotherhood, and his weakness in support of Israel. I could go on.
            The point here is that President Obama's positions do not mirror those of the American people. He has taken minority positions on abortion, on same sex marriage, on religious freedom, on energy, on health care, on small businesses, on taxes, on job-destroying regulations, on government spending, on the Middle East, and on and on.
            When the platform committee came back with a revised proposal to include God and Jerusalem, it was greeted with boos from the anti-Semites and the secular wing of the party, thus showing that the President's policy of divisiveness is dividing his own party. 
            What does all this prove? Obama cannot pander to all minorities and win.             

"You didn't build that."

            Vice-President Biden may hold the record for the most verbal gaffes uttered during this electioneering season, but President Obama may have given us the one that will last forever.

            "You didn't build that." This putdown of entrepreneurs is etched in stone. In a country whose fabulous success derives principally from individuals who built their own businesses with their ideas and their sweat, Obama's insult reveals not only his lack of understanding of the free enterprise system, but also his socialist belief in government as the solution to our problems.
            Americans think otherwise. As Ronald Reagan put it, "Government is not the solution to our problems. Government IS the problem."
            Obama's failure  to appreciate  American determination and ingenuity reminds me of  foolish statements by other people who lacked the vision to see beyond their noses. Here are some of my favorites:

            "Man will never reach the moon, regardless of all future scientific advances." __ Dr. Lee DeForest, radio pioneer.

            "There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom." __ Robert Millikan, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1923.

            "The telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication." __ Western Union memo, 1896

            "Heavier than air flying machines are impossible." __ Lord Kelvin, 1895.

            "Everything that can be invented has been invented." __ Charles H. Duell, Commissioner of Patents, 1899.

            "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." Ken Olsen, DEC Corp., 1977.

            "I don't know what use anyone could find for a machine that would make copies of documents. It certainly couldn't be a feasible business by itself." __ the head of IBM, rejecting the idea put forth by the founder of Xerox.

            "The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C,' the idea must be feasible." __Yale University professor grading Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service (Smith went on to found Federal Express).

            "We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." __ Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

            "The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value." __ David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings to invest in the radio in the 1920s.

            "A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make." Response to Mrs. Fields' idea.

            Cookies, anyone?

Fundamental Change

            What scares me the most about a second term for President Obama is the very real possibility that our Constitution will be shredded permanently.

            I don't know why Congress has not objected more vociferously to the Obama executive orders that violate established laws. And I don't understand why this is not a major campaign issue.
            Exhibit One: No Child Left Behind. Obama waived provisions of the law that he didn't like, effectively making enforcement of this law arbitrary.
            Exhibit Two: Obamacare. The president waived certain requirements of the law for hundreds of favored businesses and groups, especially labor unions.
            Exhibit Three: Immigration. Having been rebuffed in his attempt to grant amnesty to illegals,  Obama created a new class of illegal immigrants who could stay in this country legally and permanently.
            Exhibit Four: Welfare. President Obama decided that the law's work requirement no longer applied to recipients of welfare. You can sit on the couch for as long as you like.
            One might argue that taken individually none of the executive orders are calamitous. But taken together they point to a fundamental change in the way we govern ourselves. In the words of Thomas Sowell, "When a President can ignore plain language of duly passed laws, and substitute his own executive orders, we no longer have 'a government of laws and not of men' but a President ruling by decree, like the dictator in some banana republic." Indeed, we would no longer be a free people who choose the laws we want to live under.
            Why is the next election so important? Because the next president will probably appoint two Supreme Court justices. A 5-4 liberal majority would no doubt rule that Obama has the constitutional right to circumvent any law through executive order. And that would be the end of the fundamental principle underlying the balance of power in our three co-equal branches of government. Congress would be toothless, and Obama would become the dictator he has always aspired to be.
            In my view, Barack Obama is committing an impeachable offense by systematically and repeatedly violating his oath of office to faithfully execute the laws passed, and not just the ones he agrees with. Yet, Congress remains quiet, oblivious to the pain of having its teeth pulled one by one.
            Candidate Obama did promise us a fundamental change, didn't he? Well, here it is.

           

Lies and More Lies

            Is it any wonder people keep the media in such low esteem. The announcement of Paul Ryan as Romney's choice was met with an immediate trashing by TV pundits and newspaper editorials. Now, I don't mind others having a position on issues. What I do mind is parroting outrageous lies without questioning their veracity.

            Exhibit One: My daily paper, The Virginian-Pilot wasted no time in publishing a Herblock cartoon portraying Paul Ryan as a person who would end Medicare.
            Exhibit Two: On 8/16 it published a vicious slander from the pen of longtime leftist icon Maureen Dodd of the New York Times. After slicing and dicing Ryan with her acerbic tongue, she concludes in her inimitable fashion, "Ryan should stop being so lovable. People who intend to hurt other people should wipe the smile off their faces." How gifted is Ms. Dowd in being able to divine another person's malevolent intentions!
            Exhibit Three: A short letter to the editor from a Virginia Beach moron who declared his decision to vote for Obama because "Ryan wants to cut all entitlements for the middle class and elderly, including Social Security and Medicare." This is the kind of guy who would have drunk Jim Jones's Kool-Aid, no questions asked.
            Why do people buy into the outrageous lies spewing from Obama's campaign headquarters? On Medicare alone, any person with an ounce of critical thinking would know by now that Ryan's plan would preserve Medicare as is for anyone 55 and over and that Obama's plan would take over $700 billion from Medicare to fund Obamacare. But repeat lies loudly and often enough and some people will swallow them whole.
            Because he cannot run on his record of failure, the only strategy left to Obama is a smear campaign  featuring  lies accusing Romney of being a felon, not paying income taxes, poisoning children, murdering women, and now, according to Vice-President Biden, putting blacks back in chains. These reckless, unsubstantiated accusations are McCarthyism at its worst, and none of them have been repudiated by the president. To update South Dakota Senator Karl Mundt's question at the McCarthy hearings:
            Have you no sense of decency, Mr. President?

I Remember

            Obituaries on August 14 celebrated the lives of two people I knew and admired.

            The first was Johnny Pesky, the veritable icon of the Boston Red Sox. I started following the Red Sox in 1948 when Pesky was the Sox third baseman and continued admiring him as he became coach, manager, and all-around ambassador for the team he loved. After admiring him for sixty plus years, I felt I knew him. I especially remember the time the Red Sox were staying in Detroit's Pontchartrain Hotel, as I was, and Pesky was entertaining a group of younger players in the lobby with stories of Ted Williams and Bobby Doerr and the glory days of the 40s and 50's. I stood and listened in awe. He was a truly special baseball man and an even better person. He will be missed.
            The other was Helen Gurley Brown who revolutionized women's magazines during her years as editor of Cosmopolitan Magazine. I knew Helen personally while working for Hearst Magazines in the 70s. Even though she was a fabulous success and a great star in the magazine world, she was a lovely person who cared for and appreciated every person around her. I was one of those people.
            One morning in 1970 Kate MIllett and a band of feminist extremists moved in and occupied Helen's office at the corner of 57th Street and Broadway in protest of an article in Cosmopolitan they had found offensive. Hearst Magazines President Dick Deems burst into my office and asked me and a co-worker to get over to Helen's office to take control of the situation. My colleague went up to her office, but I stayed outside the building's entrance, because Deems had said that Helen had not arrived yet and, for her safety, should not be allowed upstairs.
            Sure enough, I caught sight of her heading in my direction along 57th Street. I hurried over to her, swung her around, and told her she shouldn't go to her office because of the occupiers. While I was explaining the situation to her, we realized we were being followed closely by a rather large woman who had been posted at the building's entrance, ostensibly watching for Helen as I had been. Reacting to the threat, Helen took us into a building on the corner of 57th and 7th Avenue where, she said, she knew the people at the MCI radio station on the third floor. The tail followed us into the elevator and stood behind us as we rode up.
            The elevator doors opened to MCI's floor, and Helen walked out into a mass of people, including several New York City police officers. I found out later that the police were there to provide protection for a Saudi prince who was being interviewed on radio. Perfect. I blocked  the tail to prevent her from following Helen. The doors closed. Helen was safe, and the threat fizzled.
            The next day Helen's secretary came to my office with a package for me. In it was a bottle of wine and a note. It said, "To my favorite bodyguard. Helen." She had not forgotten.
            Neither have I.

Maine Cuts Medicaid

            Some news items just don't seem to get the coverage they deserve. At the very bottom of page 2 in the 8/2/12 edition of the Wall Street Journal was a short piece by Christopher Weaver that really grabbed my attention. In it, Weaver says that the state of Maine has moved to strip about 30,000  Medicaid patients from its state-run health program.

            That is stunning news. It seems that the Supreme Court's June ruling on Medicaid might have released states from the law's ban on striking current Medicaid enrollees. The article suggests that other states have taken notice and are planning similar cuts.
            Why is this big news? Because one of the reasons Medicaid has become such a budget buster is that its rolls are inflated with hundreds of thousands of recipients who shouldn't be there. We're not talking about removing the safety net for children or the indigent. Nobody is arguing for them to be bumped off the rolls. On the other hand, Maine is targeting some people, for example, who earn up to 133% of the poverty line. That's just about $30,000 a year for a family of four. Should the safety net really be meant for them?
            There's more. Under Obamacare, an estimated 30 million people who  claim they can't afford medical insurance would be added to the Medicaid rolls. And that's in addition to the ones already on Medicaid. Remember when  Obama promised that costs wouldn't go up? It's no wonder states are refusing to take them on.
            Maine's move is being challenged, of course, by Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services. The nanny of HHS, like her boss, has no interest in seeing a reduction in the number of people who are dependent on the government.
            Heck. Adding another trillion or two to the federal deficit is no problem... Just as long as the people who are happy being slaves to the government continue to vote.

Palestinian Culture

            During his visit to Israel, Mitt Romney attributed the backwardness of Palestinians to their culture. For that, he was branded a racist by his critics. But did he have a point? Instead of a personal attack on Romney's character, the discussion should be on the merits of the issue.

            Romney certainly has a point when you look at the huge differences in material and economic success in Palestine and Israel. A case can be made for blaming Palestinian lack of success on the Palestinian culture of repression, corruption, and terrorism. But is that really "culture" in the traditional sense?
            Webster defines culture as "the totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought characteristic of a community or population." In that sense, Palestine culture is dominated by Islam. Is Islam, therefore, the cause of Palestinian failure? Is Judaism the key to Israel's success? In either case, I think the answer is both yes and no. The key to success or lack of it is, in my view, not just cultural, but also political.
            Turkey is perhaps the most successful Islamic country in the Middle East. It is governed by a secular regime that does not let religious beliefs interfere with economic policy or democratic institutions. Unfortunately, it is quite alone in that respect.
            In the last two years Islamic countries of the Middle East and North Africa have been swept by political revolution. The so-called Arab Spring has seen despots ousted from power in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and Iraq. Syria is not far behind. It's not clear, however, that despotism is being replaced by something better. Western hopes for the emergence of democracies are not likely to be realized everywhere, if anywhere at all. Instead, we will probably see Islamists grab control, and Islamists have not proven to be terribly fond of democracies. But at least there's a chance that they will adopt some democratic institutions to mitigate the effects of Islamic thought and practice.
            Palestine is a different story. There the government is dominated by Hezbollah whose sole, all-encompassing motivation is the extinction of Israel. As clients of Iran, Palestinians are controlled by jihadists who use terrorism as their principal method of advancement. This is not culture: it is madness. And as long as this madness persists, Palestinians can never hope to achieve the success of Israel, the only true democracy in the region.
            We are now faced with terrible questions. Will Israel strike Iran? If it does, as is increasingly likely, will the Islamists who have newly come to power stand with Tehran or will they stand aside? Will the United States, with a president who has openly declared his Islamic faith and is irresolute in the face of Iranian threats,  back Israel?
            I fear we will know the answer. And it won't be before very long.

Troubled and Afraid

            I'm troubled and I'm afraid. I'm troubled by what is happening to our country under the present leadership. I'm afraid it's only going to get worse if we don't make a drastic change in November.

            Candidate Obama promised he would bring fundamental change to this country. Hardly anyone knew what kind of change. Now we know.
            We know that President Obama does not like America and feels he has to apologize for it. He dislikes capitalism because it relies on the individual rather than the government; he despises the rich and successful and seeks to tax them to death; he disdains the entrepreneurial spirit and the freedom that makes it possible; and he does not believe in our nation's exceptionalism. He prefers European-style Socialism, the redistribution of wealth, government solutions for every perceived ill, and a New World Order to override our Constitution.
            Another four years under this president will be catastrophic. Some have called it the Imperial Presidency. I call it simply tyranny. Obama aspires to despotism, a system of absolute power where he alone decides what's good for the country. He has already shown how little respect he has for the law and for court judgments in,  for example, his rewriting of immigration laws and his refusal to abide by court directives to lift the drilling moratorium. Now he has gutted the work requirement of welfare law with complete disregard for Congress. He continues to spend billions of taxpayer dollars on green enterprises after so many of them have failed, while at the same time doing everything he can to prevent an increase in our supply of fossil fuels.
            Having already proven how Congress is powerless and marginalized, he will continue to spend money he doesn't have, driving us further into debt. He will continue to choke our free enterprise system with increased regulations and crushing taxation. He will drive even more Americans into the slavery of dependency. He alone will decide who benefits from his largesse. He will continue to fly around the country on Air Force One to smile and to tell adoring fans how well we are doing. And they will believe his lies because he, after all, is taking care of them.
            Meanwhile, Iran will have nuclear weapons, Israel will face destruction alone, and the United Nations will govern the seas and the environment, while mouthing platitudes about peace among nations, even as jihadist genocide spreads its plague around the world.
            How can I be anything but afraid for my country. More than afraid, I am terrified.

A Little More Class, Please

            It may not qualify as a major gaffe, but it certainly showed a lack of class. We are now reminded of it nearly four years later by none other than Mitt Romney.

            On his recent visit to London, Romney told the Brits that he would be happy to have the bust of Winston Churchill returned to the White House. He was referring to one of the first actions Barack Obama took after his inauguration as President of the United States: he ordered the bust of Churchill, a gift from Great Britain which had been in the Oval Office since Nixon, to be returned to the British. The reason, it was rumored, was that it was in retaliation for the treatment of Kenya by the British during the colonial era. True or not, the action was a gross insult to our greatest ally. And it showed an utter lack of class by the president.
            Reminded now of the gaffe, the White House scurried to deny it, saying that the bust was still in the White House, that it had never been returned. This proved to be false. The bust had indeed been returned and is now in the British embassy in Washington.
            It has been clear from the beginning of his term that Obama does not stand with the country's closest allies. I recall another slap at the British when the White House telegraphed his preference for Argentina's position on the Falkland Islands by calling them the Maldives, Argentina's appellation. To top it off, Obama himself displayed his ignorance by referring to the islands as the Malvinas. Not as bad as calling the Marine Corps the Marine corpse, but just as embarrassing.
            Romney's next stop was Israel, an ally that Obama has never deigned to visit. Indeed, he bypassed Israel on his first trip abroad to bow down before a Saudi prince. He has preferred to insult Prime Minister Netanyahu in the White House, all the while siding with the Palestinians by insisting on a return to the pre-1967 borders.
            Speaking of the White House, which we Americans rightly feel is Our House, this president has been photographed again and again with his feet up on the furniture, including the Oval Office desk used by President Kennedy and President Reagan, among others.
            He has also been photographed covering his crotch during the singing of the National Anthem, while others around him saluted the flag.
            Do we not have the right to expect a little more class from the leader of our great country?

Cries from Woonsocket

            I was born in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, an old mill town astride the Blackstone River in the northeast corner of the state. The city once had the greatest percentage of French-Canadian immigrants in the country. It had a French newspaper, a French radio station whose theme song I can still remember, and many churches where only French was heard from the pulpit. In 1950 Woonsocket was designated an All-American City. It had good schools, a thriving Main Street, and full employment in the many wool and cotton mills that stood like giant red cliffs along the fast-flowing river that supplied their power. But then the textile industry moved south to more favorable economic climes, and Woonsocket gradually became a shell of its former self.

            The city of my birth has never recovered. With high unemployment, an aging population, and a shrinking tax base, Woonsocket can no longer fulfill its long-term contractual obligations and is now facing bankruptcy. Downriver Pawtucket is also close to declaring bankruptcy, while nearby Central Falls already has.
            These are but three of the many troubled cities that are popping up like mushrooms all over the nation's map. Already In bankruptcy are Stockton, San Bernadino, and Mammoth Lakes in California alone. Not far behind are San Diego and San Jose, as well as Las Vegas and Reno next door in Nevada. Even Chicago, Los Angeles, Detroit, and New York are experiencing daunting fiscal crises. And, closer to home, our northern neighbor Norfolk is not in such great shape either. Can we imagine the outcry if the mayor of Norfolk reduced all public employee salaries to the minimum wage like the mayor of Scranton did?
            These cities are but a microcosm of what is happening on the national level with unbridled entitlements exploding the national debt by over $4 trillion in just the last three years. Yet all attempts at reform are met with accusations of pushing grandma off the cliff or starving the poor. Heaven forbid! And while we're at it, let's add on another trillion for Obamacare. The country can't go bankrupt. All we have to do is print more money and borrow the rest from China. Anybody else want food stamps?
            Can't our leaders smell the rot in the system they've created? Haven't they seen the disastrous consequences of Socialism in Greece, Spain, and Italy? Can they not hear the moans of despair from Woonsocket?

           

Character, not Color

            In his memorable speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King dreamed of the day when his children would not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.  On June 28, 2012, Dr. King would have been ashamed to see blacks tarnish his words and his dream.

            In response to the Congressional Black Caucus walking out of the House of Representatives to protest the vote to find Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress, Alan West, the only member of that caucus not to do so, said it perfectly, "Today, the Congressional Black Caucus and other liberal members of Congress judged the Attorney General by the color of his skin and not by the content of his character."
            Fast and Furious is an enormous scandal. It is clear that the Justice Department authorized the ill-conceived gun-running operation that resulted in the death of an American agent and hundreds of Mexicans. To make matters worse, Justice Department testimony before Congress was proven false, and Holder himself lied about his knowledge of the operation. Congress had no choice but to hold the Attorney General in contempt when he refused to turn over subpoenaed documents and got the President to invoke executive privilege to prevent the truth from coming out. Holder richly deserved to be held in contempt. But blacks, abetted by leftists like Nancy Pelosi, accused Republicans of conducting a fishing expedition and suggested that it was linked to Republican attempts to suppress minority voting. This was in direct reference to the Justice Department suing states to prevent them from instituting voter I.D. , brazenly defying a ruling by the Supreme Court that such a requirement was constitutional.
            As if on cue, the Reverend Sharpton, who long ago established his racist bona fides in the Tawana Brawley case, picked up his banner of hate to accuse Republicans of racism in the Holder matter, just as he had cried racism in the Treyvon Martin case.
            We know there is racism in this country. But nowhere is it more evident than in the race baiting of the Sharptons of this world and the bias of the Congressional Black Caucus.
            President Obama could put a stop to all this by firing Holder and denouncing black racism. Instead he puts his own racist attitude in full view by defending Holder and supporting Sharpton, a regular visitor to the White House. This is consistent with his record of pre-judging white guilt in matters such as the police arrest of black professor Henry Louis Gates in Cambridge (the cops acted stupidly) and the Treyvon Martin case ("If I had a son, he would look like Treyvon").
            Racism, wherever it rears its ugly head, is disgusting and wrong. Let's just not excuse it when it comes from its supposed victims. Character, not color, should be the only measure of a man.

Our Panderer in Chief

            Barack Obama is a nice guy. I think I would enjoy playing a round of golf with him. As long as we didn't talk about any serious issues, I might also enjoy having a beer with him afterwards. He also appears to be a great family man, a loyal and faithful husband, and a loving dad. These days, when the responsible black head of family is a vanishing breed, the President is a superb role model. Too bad he is such a lousy president.

            It has become clear that Obama was not ready to hold such a high office. He has never held a real job, unless you count the time he was a community organizer or an undistinguished state legislator or U.S. senator; he has never run a business or been responsible for a bottom line; he has never understood the virtues of capitalism and free enterprise; and he has never appreciated the exceptional role this country plays on the world stage. What he has learned, on the other hand, is how to manipulate public opinion to get elected.
            Candidate Obama wanted us to believe that he would unify this country. He has done exactly the opposite: he is the most divisive president in history. He has encouraged us to resent the rich and successful. He has blamed Bush and the Republicans for the country's economic failures. He has also blamed the Japanese tsunami, the big banks, big oil, Wall Street, and Europe for delaying the recovery. As for himself, well, he accepts no responsibility for any of our country's ills, not high unemployment, not the housing crisis, not the raging deficits.
            Meanwhile, he is in full campaign mode and has been for close to a year. At last count he has made 180 trips on Air Force One to beg for money and to preach to selected adoring groups. All on the taxpayer's dime, of course.
            If there is one word that characterizes the President's style, it is pandering. It's all part of his divide and conquer strategy.
            He panders to the environmentalists by funding failures like Solyndra, by killing job-creating ventures like the Keystone pipeline, and by unleashing his EPA attack dogs on fossil fuels. He panders to the abortion lobby by enacting a health care law that affronts Catholics. He panders to gays by rejecting the Defense of Marriage Act.
            He panders to blacks by encouraging the likes of Jesse Jackson and the Reverend Sharpton to fan the flames of racial hatred and by suing states to prevent them from enacting voter I.D. laws. He panders to Hispanics by refusing to enforce immigration laws and by suing those states that would, and by issuing executive orders to bypass Congress in achieving his ultimate goal of amnesty for illegals.
            He panders to the UAW, the AFL-CIO, the NEA, and public sector unions. He panders to Food Stamp recipients, to seniors, to the Occupy Wall Street crowd. He panders to Muslims by celebrating their non-existent contributions to the nation's history.
            If you belong to a group that he hasn't pandered to yet, let him know. I'm sure he can find a way to fit you in.

Facts and only Facts

            My niece is one of the lucky ones, When she graduated from college, she was able to land a job with the Atlantic, a classy magazine with a long history of good writing and intellectually challenging articles. When I sent her a subscription to Smithsonian, she reciprocated by subscribing me to the Atlantic.

            A short piece in the June issue by James Parker really got my attention. Entitled Glenn Beck in Exile," the article generally is a putdown of Beck's new venture, a Web/TV network called GBTV. Parker calls it "building a 24/7 media empire in his [Beck's] loopy image."                  The writer doesn't hold back in his scorn for the one-time major irritant of the Obama administration. Labels he hangs on Beck, like "patriotic unction," "zodiac of personal demons," "vials of his wrath," and "quivering curds of his indignation" leave no doubt about his disdain for the former star of Fox News. For good measure he takes irrelevant and gratuitous shots at conservative icons by describing Rush Limbaugh as the kingpin of malevolence and accusing Sean Hannity of triumphant mendacity.

            Parker may be a dexterous wordsmith, but his commentary is neither fair nor defensible. He clearly believes that dripping venom all over the page is more effective than a balanced presentation. His piece is a perfect example of why people distrust the media. Why do writers like Parker resort to character assassination rather than honest analysis? Since when does slander carry more weight than  facts?

            We all have our opinions and biases. I am an avowed conservative with a dollop of libertarianism. Some people agree with me, others don't. But if I take a position on an issue without facts to back it up, then I deserve to be slapped down. Similarly, if a liberal presents a cogent argument, I am likely to concede the point. In support of any political persuasion, accusations of loopiness, malevolence, or mendacity are no substitute for a reasoned and sustainable point of view.

            We are now entering the high season of campaigning for national office. And we are already seeing shameful attacks coming from unscrupulous supporters of both sides. I hope voters will be wise enough to disregard the nonsense and the puffery, and weigh the pros and cons of every important issue facing this country. The future is too important for us to choose our leaders based on scurrilous accusations and shameless demagoguery.

Me Injun

            Elizabeth Warren, Senate hopeful from Massachusetts, recently made news with reports that she had used a highly doubtful claim of Native-American ancestry to obtain preferential treatment as a minority. I had to chuckle at this cynical and absurd ploy, because I could have done the same thing myself.

            Not long ago my sister Louise and I decided to do our family tree. The research was great fun. By the time we finished, we had documented ancestors going back to 16th century France. Fortunately, we got plenty of help from genealogical societies and one book in particular that detailed my paternal grandparents' lines back to the very earliest settlement of their village in Canada. We also had a family photo album that my grandparents had maintained religiously over the years. The most intriguing photos, however, were found in a shoebox. Of those, the most startling was a tintype of my maternal grandmother's mother.
            She had very definite features of a Native-American.
            "I knew it!" blurted my sister. "We have Indian blood coursing through our veins."
            Louise had insisted for years, even before our genealogical research, that we must have had an infusion of aboriginal genes somewhere in our ancestry. That's because our dad looked like he could have posed for the Indian nickel. He had high cheekbones, a swarthy complexion, a prominent hooked nose, and straight jet-black hair. In addition, he shared  those characteristics with one of his brothers, and passed some of them on. We were not able to trace our great-grandmother's line back far enough to prove our Indian ancestry, but it was enough for me to shout, "I could have  built a casino!"
            Joking aside, claims of special status based on remote connections to a minority group are laughable. Worse, they are racist and un-American. They are no better than demands of reparations for ills committed generations ago.
            All Americans are descendants of people who were oppressed,  some more than others to be sure, but vilified in one way or another. American history  is filled with stories of religious persecution, famine, tyranny, enslavement, and murderous bigotry. Fortunately, these tales of human degradation are overshadowed by stories of courage in the face of adversity, determination to succeed, indomitable spirit, and struggle for freedom and equality.
            It is high time for Americans of all colors, creeds, and ancestries to reject policies of class warfare and divisiveness, the cult of victimhood, and the culture of imagined rights and unearned entitlements.
            We are not a hyphenated people. We are Americans. Let us celebrate our diverse heritage, but let us not forget our motto, E pluribus unum.