Christmas Images

            In my old age I am becoming more and more a sentimentalist when it comes to Christmas. The season always seems to bring out the best in people, in spite of inevitable news of holiday tragedies brought on by treacherous weather.

            Several images of this Christmas will stay with me. One is of the little children in Holy Family Church in Elizabeth City, all dressed up in costume as shepherds, wise men, and the holy family—even a golden star—as they marched out after services and led the congregation to a reenactment of the Christmas scene.

            Another indelible image is of the Salvation Army volunteer standing outside of Walgreen’s in Elizabeth City on the coldest evening of the week. As I waited in the car for my wife to do her shopping inside, I watched this brave lady shivering and fighting the cold by jumping up and down and ringing her bell vigorously even when there were no shoppers in sight.

            The Salvation Army is one of our favorite charities, not only because of its intrepid bell-ringers at Christmas, but also because its executives take so little in remuneration for their work.  That’s in contrast with other charities like the United Way, the Red Cross, and Unicef whose executives rake in a much as $2 million in salary and benefits. I would encourage everyone with access to the Internet to check out the great charities as well as the frauds and outright scams. Donate, be generous, but make sure you know who gets the money.

The Greatest Coward

            President Obama’s press conference on December 16th was remarkable in several respects. His claim that we’re so much better off today than when he took office shows that he continues to live a bubble of self-delusion. His domestic policies were soundly rejected by voters in the last two off-year elections and in the last presidential election, yet he blames these disasters on messaging rather than substance.

            On the international front the President did acknowledge some responsibility for the atrocities in Syria that have left 500,000 civilians dead and 2,000,000 others displaced. But he claimed that any action he could have taken would not have been in the interests of our long-term national security. Those were the words of the man who drew a red line on Syria’s use of chemical weapons and then failed to act when Assad gassed his people. Those were the words of the man who did nothing when Russia moved in and began to bomb the civilians of Aleppo. The most powerful man in the world did nothing to stop the genocide. Nothing.

            President Obama, in the short time he has left in office, has been given a chance at redemption in the South China Sea. The Chinese have stolen an underwater drone right under our noses in a brazen act of piracy that some have called an act of war. This calls for a strong and immediate response from the United States. Thus far Obama has done nothing to prevent China from militarizing the area and threatening the security of our Asian allies. Will he take action now? Or will he add the surrender of the South China Sea to the genocide in Aleppo as his legacy?

            What we heard last Friday were the words of a man who will be remembered not as the most powerful man of his time, but as one of history’s greatest cowards.

Let's Go Hacking

            The hysteria in the Clinton camp is beyond surreal. These people just can’t accept defeat at the hands of a crude, ignorant, blowhard entertainer, and will do anything to invalidate his victory.

            First, they attacked the very idea of the electoral college, but recognizing that they couldn’t change the Constitution, they tried a recount. That failed. Then they went after the electors themselves with a barrage of phone calls and emails to demand that the electors “vote their conscience” and not vote for Trump.  Finally, they said that Russian hacking influenced the election, with Josh Earnest (no doubt at Obama’s urging) going so far as to accuse Trump of asking Russia to meddle with the elections in his favor.

            These facts are clear: 1) Someone hacked the DNC and exposed the collusion between the DNC and Hillary to eliminate Bernie Sanders as a serious challenger; 2) Someone hacked Podesta’s emails to damage Hillary’s candidacy; and 3) WikiLeaks revealed the hacked information.

            What is not clear is who did the hacking. Of course, Hillary’s people want to blame the Russians and point to the CIA’s suspicions as fact. But there are problems with this accusation. First, the CIA has not supported its suspicions with evidence. Second, the Director of National Intelligence does not share the CIA’s conclusions. And third, Julian Assange of WikiLeaks insists that he did not get the hacked information from the Russians. Assange is backed by British Ambassador Craig Murray who claims he knows the hacker and has met him. The hacker, he says, is a Washington insider.

            We don’t know if Murray is telling the truth—there’s so much fake news out there—or is willing to identify his source. But just image how nuts the Democrats will go if Murray does reveal the identity of the hacker, and it turns out it was someone in Hillary’s camp...

            I’m not wishing any further embarrassment on Hillary and her toadies. I just wish the Democrats would stop embarrassing themselves and the country with their puerile attempts to reverse the outcome of the elections.

            To use a sports metaphor, Hillary’s victory was supposed to be a slam dunk. But her shot clanked off the rim and the Democrats lost. Game over. Get over it.

Great Picks

            I was barely old enough to walk when Pearl Harbor was attacked, so I don’t have any memory of that day. But I do remember the time I visited the Arizona memorial in Pearl some years ago. The memory is vivid, because it was the last time I came close to punching somebody out. During our guide’s solemn talk about the events of December 7, 1941, I heard laughing and snickering behind me. I turned and glared at two young Japanese men who were showing a lack of respect for this sacred place. Fortunately for them—and my rising anger—they turned and walked away.

            I mention this because I am enormously pleased with President-elect Trump’s selection of General James “Mad Dog” Mattis to be our next Secretary of Defense. At last we will have a man who will not put up with the disrespect of our armed forces by Iran, China, or Russia. He will not be looking to send our troops into combat, but if forced to do so, he will not be satisfied with anything less than victory. And I suspect that our adversaries already know this and will no longer be laughing at us.

            The selection of Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to head the EPA is another great move by Mr. Trump. It signals his intention to negate President Obama’s overreach through the EPA by imposing abusive climate-change rules like the Clean Power Plan that put the coal industry out of business. Congressional Democrats are going nuts over this appointment. We can expect a fierce fight when Pruitt’s confirmation hearing comes around.

            Not all of Trump’s picks are as good as Mattis or Pruitt. Mnuchin for Treasury Secretary is questionable and Ross for Commerce is awful. But by and large Trump is showing that he means to keep his campaign promises. Americans like that. That’s why Trumps’s approval numbers are soaring.

           

Drain This Swamp

            A majority of Americans would love to impose term limits on members of Congress, not only to get rid of career politicians who will do anything to stay in power, but also to limit the time venal legislators have to enrich themselves while in office. Of course, term limits are not likely to happen without a Constitutional amendment, because Congress is not about to impose them on itself. Fortunately, we have presidential elections every four years that give voters a chance to elect a new leader to “drain the swamp,” as Donald Trump so aptly puts it.

            We are now beginning to see the incoming administration take shape. Personally, I am very encouraged by the President-elect’s picks to restore sanity inside the Washington Beltway. One selection in particular bodes well for the education of our children. Betsy DeVos, Trump’s nominee for Education Secretary, is exactly the person we need to drain the swamp in which sub-standard inner-city schools have been mired for so long.

            Betsy DeVos recognizes that money is not the problem; we already spend far more per student than any other country whose kids outperform ours. The problem is threefold: a) a top-down educational system that has federal bureaucrats dictating to local school districts what and how to teach our children; b) an entrenched public-school monopoly opposed to competition, and c) teachers’ unions that insulate incompetent but tenured members from accountability.

            I can’t wait for this flawed system to get a jolt of common sense reality. If Ms. DeVos has her way, Common Core will be killed and local school districts will regain control of their curriculum and testing methods. And charter schools, private schools, scholarship programs, and home schooling will provide alternatives to failing schools, proving once and for all that school choice is the best countermeasure to policies advocated by self-interested unions. Let’s drain this swamp.

Trophies and Safe Spaces

            When my grandson first joined a soccer team some years ago, he was the worst player on the field; he had never played the game, didn’t know the rules, and had no clue which goal was his.  Yet, at the end of a losing season he still got a “participation” trophy.  His generation is now the one that doesn’t understand that losing is part of life.          

            At universities across the country, coddled students traumatized by the realities of life wallow in self-absorbed pity at the dire prospects of a Trump presidency.  They seek shelter in the safe spaces of academia, in the comforting arms of professors as detached from reality as they are.           

            Fr. George Rutler, pastor of St. Michael’s Church in Manhattan mockingly says it best: “In universities across the land…these “safe spaces” [are] supplied with soft cushions, hot chocolate, coloring books, and attendant psychologists… [and] friendly kittens and puppies for weeping students to cuddle...What will the frightened half-adults do when they leave their safe spaces and enter a society where there is no one to offer them hot chocolate during their tantrums?”

            Fr. Rutler points out that among many youthful historical figures, Alexander Hamilton was a fighting lieutenant-colonel at the age of 21, Joan of Arc a heroine at 19, and Don Juan of Austria only 24 when he halted the advance of the Ottomans in the battle of Lepanto.  There is no record of their moral maturity having been molded (or delayed) by the intellectual pretenders of their day. And no record of their ever having received a participation trophy.

Post-Election

            Stunning images dominated the presidential elections, beginning for me with the post-election map of the United States by county. Except for slivers of blue along both coasts and pockets of blue in urban areas, the map was almost all red. Then we got TV reports on street protests in several large cities and flag-burnings on college campuses. These images tell us a lot about how divided a nation we have become.

            The map shows a stark division between rural and urban America. The protests, moreover, confirm, beyond simple geography, that we have two Americas with essentially different values. These differences have always existed, but it took an election between two flawed candidates with enormous negatives to arouse passions on both sides.

            The majority of citizens outside our cities, feeling disenfranchised by a leftist government insensitive to their needs, voted against what they saw as a corrupt Democrat machine that would only make matters worse. “Drain the Swamp” became the perfect expression of their anger, as they rallied for the one man who heard their cries and gave them hope. What the biased media and the pollsters missed was the depth of their passion.

            The street and campus protesters railed against election results that threaten their generous entitlements. Will they now be forced to pay for their own food, their own medical care, and, as Hillary promised, their free college education? The eruption of slanders from an embarrassed media says it all: How will we survive in a country run by bigots and racists?

            I submit that we are not a nation of bigots and racists. Most Americans are not haters. They are law-abiding citizens who believe in equality and in the freedom and opportunity to enjoy their God-given rights of “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Maybe it’s time for all of us to retreat to a quiet corner and to re-read the Declaration of Independence. In this season of Thanksgiving, we should all be grateful to be living in this great country of ours.

Hugs for Hillary

            The picture of Michele Obama embracing Hillary Clinton was plastered all over the media this past week. That one photo, I maintain, is emblematic of everything that’s wrong with the Democratic Party: the wife of the President of the United States—who actually detests Secretary Clinton—loweriing herself to embrace the most corrupt liar of any presidential candidate in the history of this country. Which begs the question, “What does it take to embarrass Democrats?”

            I might ask that question of Nancy Theodore who should be embarrassed by her letter to the editor on October 26 that was filled with distorted facts and glaring omissions to refute my negative observations on Barack Obama’s legacy. Ms. Theodore has always been consistent in her support of Obama’s disastrous Affordable Care Act, his budget-busting tax and spend policies, his extra-constitutional executive orders, his job-killing regulations, his sympathies for Muslims, and his treasonous Iran agreement. For all these failures she still blames Bush and the Republicans. We can search in vain through all her letters critical of me to find anything critical of Obama and the Democrats.

            After all the WikiLeak exposures of Clinton corruption, after Director Comey’s announcement that the FBI is reopening its investigation into Hillary’s emails, what more does Ms. Theodore need to be embarrassed by Democrats? If Hillary Clinton came to Hertford, would Ms.Theodore stand in line to give her a hug?

Trump Blew It

            In the third debate Donald Trump had a chance to take down Hillary Clinton in front of 60 million viewers. But he blew it. He never brought up Hillary’s sordid, scandal-filled past (Cattlegate, White Water, Travelgate, missing Rose Law Firm records, Vince Foster suicide, etc.); he didn’t make the case for her complicity in the criminal racketeering of the Clinton Foundation, especially the treasonous uranium giveaway to the Russians; he didn’t expose her contempt for Catholics and evangelicals; and he didn’t rebut Hillary’s debate lies about the Heller decision and the claim that her advocacy for open borders was about energy. He didn’t even point to Hillary’s pathological mendacity by recalling her outrageous lie about the Benghazi video, a lie she repeated to the parents of the murdered Americans as their caskets were rolling by.

            Instead, Trump refocused the debate on himself by saying he might not support the winner of the presidential election. For days that’s all the media talked about, while giving Hillary a free pass on the corruption revealed by the WikiLeaks release of Clinton-camp emails.

            For the sake of this country Hillary Clinton must not become the next President of the United States. But I don’t see how Trump can defeat her when he is facing three powerful opponents simultaneously: the corrupt Clinton machine, the biased media, and his worst enemy, an uninformed, inarticulate, thin-skinned egomaniac by the name of Donald J. Trump.

           

The Fix

            The single most consequential decision in this presidential cycle was made my FBI Director James Comey. His decision not to recommend prosecution of Hillary Clinton removed the major roadblock to her presidency. On the other hand, a recommendation to prosecute would most likely have assured Donald Trump’s election. One may justly wonder which consequence motivated Director Comey. Personally, I think he was motivated by politics: he wanted to save his job. The clues are everywhere.

            One. We now know that the case for prosecution was solid. FBI agents are telling us that the vast majority of investigators were convinced of that fact, in spite of actions by the Justice Department to impede the investigation, especially by preventing the interrogation of immunized witnesses. Yet, Director Comey went against the recommendations of his own investigators.  

            Two. President Obama did not want Hillary Clinton to be prosecuted for two reasons: 1) As his successor, she would continue his policies, thereby protecting his legacy, and 2) A grand jury investigation would reveal his complicity in the email scandal.

            Three. When Director Comey said that no reasonable prosecutor would take this case, he was right: prosecutors in the Department of Justice work under Loretta Lynch who works directly for the President. Clearly, there was no way she was going to implicate her boss in this scandal; she did not want to make a decision that would cost her her job, her reputation, or both. She needed a scapegoat.

            Four. Even though it wasn’t his role, Director Comey recommended against prosecution. By doing so, he took Loretta Lynch off the hook and enabled her to close the case without getting her hands dirty. You can bet that when she had that little meeting with Bill Clinton she knew what Comey would do. The fix was in.

            Director Comey saved his job. But his reputation for integrity has been shattered. He will have to live with that.

Legacy of a Narcissist

            Barack Obama, supreme narcissist, is concerned about preserving his legacy. He is depending on the voters in this election to confirm their love of him by electing Hillary Clinton to succeed him and continue his policies. That he is depending on the most corrupt politician in the history of presidential politics to perpetuate his agenda does not appear to bother him. But just in case, he is buying insurance by appealing to his most loyal constituents, the solid bloc of black voters who flocked to the polls to elect and re-elect him. He will consider it a personal insult if they don’t vote to cement his legacy by voting for Hillary.

            What will be Obama’s legacy? On the domestic front he will be remembered as the man who presided over: a recession recovery that never exceeded two percent growth in GDP; the lowest labor participation rate since the 1970s; a doubling of the national debt; a disastrous health care system derisively bearing his name; a widening racial divide featuring race riots and assaults on law enforcement officers; out-of-control illegal immigration; and repeated acts terrorism whose nature the president refuses to acknowledge.

            Internationally, history will remember President Obama as a weak leader who: abhorred confrontation with Russia in Ukraine, with China in the South China Sea, and with North Korea’s nuclear testing; created a vacuum in Iraq that led to the rise of ISIS; and negotiated with Iran a disastrous agreement that threatens the security of the Middle East.

            Worst of all, Obama drew a red line with Syria, but did not act when Syria crossed it. Had the President bolstered our allies on the ground by destroying Syria’s planes and its chemical stores, we would not have seen the destruction of so many cities, the loss of more than 200,000 innocent civilian lives, and the desperate migration of a million refugees.

            Barack Obama has always been in love with the image he sees in the mirror. But history will not be kind to him. His legacy will not be one of success and triumph; it will be one of failure at home, weakness abroad, and cowardice in the face of the enemy.

  

The Unity of Lies

    The top half of the front page of today's Virginian-Pilot Sports section is a photo of ODU football players forming a circle on the field. Their coach, Bobby Wilder, approved of this political statement. He said, "Let's show unity, respect free speech."
     Isn't that wonderful! Except that the players were wearing Black Lives Matter shirts and holding their hands up in the familiar "Hands Up, Don't Shoot" pose. Free speech is wonderful, but not when it perpetuates a lie, especially when that lie has led to the murder of policemen.
     Coach Wilder caught some heat for his uncritical position on this matter. That's when he said, "But this is about the children. Everyone needs to put their agenda down." Well, what about Black Lives Matters's agenda? Does Coach Wilder approve of killing police? What about his responsibility for teaching his players respect for the truth?
     Bobby Wilder is a moron. He should not be in a position to influence kids. He should be fired.

Why No Hillary Indictrment

            I don’t know about anybody else, but to me the incessant cacophony in the media before the first presidential debate was the very definition of excess. I don’t think the media could have placed a greater importance on any event short of the Big Bang.  Unfortunately, its absorbed frenzy totally obliterated another story of perhaps greater import: the Friday night FBI dump of information that revealed why Hillary Clinton was never indicted (the Friday night in question being just three days before the debate).

            The reason FBI Director James Comey decided against recommending an indictment of Secretary Clinton—even after laying out a solid case for it—is that it would have exposed President Obama as a direct participant in the case, making him liable to prosecution himself for a violation of the law. The facts are really quite simple.

            We all remember President Obama announcing that he had first heard about Hillary’s illegal use of a private server from a news story in the press. That was a lie.  We now learn from the information turned over by the FBI that Obama not only knew about Clinton’s server, he sent classified email(s) to her on it. Even more telling, he used a pseudonym so as not to be identified as the source of the information.  According to former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy, “He not only engaged in the same type of misconduct Clinton did; he engaged in it with Clinton.”

            Are we starting to get the picture? Had Comey recommended a Clinton indictment, the prosecutorial process would have revealed the President’s own culpability and brought public embarrassment to the President, the Justice Department, and the FBI. Hence, the need for a massive cover-up, beginning with “straight-shooter” Comey squashing the indictment.

            The stench of corruption pervades this administration. The old saying has never been truer: A fish rots from the head down.

Taxes and Regulations

            We may soon see a new entitlement piled on top of the mountain of entitlements contributing to America’s massive debt. This one may be named for the next president’s daughter. No, not Chelsea Clinton, but Ivanka Trump. If Trump is elected president, Ivanka will likely be the face of a new entitlement providing child-care tax rebates or, for those who pay no income taxes, an increase in the earned-income tax credit.

            Donald Trump is looking for ways to ingratiate himself with women. But does the cost of this new idea have to be piled on top of existing entitlements and social programs, the chief causes of the nation’s unsustainable debt? Trump says he will pay for his new program with a reduction in fraud and abuse. Wishful thinking. A drop in the bucket at best.

            Given our presidential candidates’ opposition to reforming Social Security and Medicare, there is only one way to reverse the stampede to national bankruptcy: Growth. Under President Obama GDP has risen by less than 2% annually. What we need is for growth to be 3.5% at a minimum.

            So how do we remove the impediments to growth we have seen under Obama? Two ways: tax reform and regulatory reform.

            Growth can only happen if the private sector creates new jobs. The single most desirable tax reform would be a reduction in the 35% business tax that has forced companies like Apple to move overseas to avoid this massive tax burden and major employers like Ford to move plants to Mexico to take advantage of cheap labor. Common sense reforms to reduce labor costs domestically would help, but nothing will persuade companies to remain in America more than tax reform.

            We must also reduce the burden of regulations that cost businesses billions of dollars in compliance and prevents start-ups from creating new jobs.  In 2015 the federal government wrote 5,712 rules and regulations totaling 81,611 pages. And that wasn’t even a record for an Obama Administration intent on regulating everything from smokestacks to puddles. This year will probably end up being worse.

            Taxes are necessary to run the government, and some regulations are needed to maintain order and safety for the citizenry. But government must stop micromanaging every aspect of our lives and just get out of the way so we can break the shackles of debt and get back to rebuilding a prosperous nation.

The 10th Gets No Respect

            The 10^th Amendment to the Constitution is brief, only 28 words, and should be perfectly clear to anyone who reads it. It says, in effect, that the federal government has no powers except those specifically granted to it by the Constitution. Yet, the 10^th Amendment has been violated more frequently by the Executive Branch than any other. And of all the presidents who have violated it, Barack Obama is the worst. He has said unabashedly that where Congress fails to act, he will. And he has. Again and again he has legislated from the White House, usurping powers specifically granted to Congress by the Constitution.

            Most egregious perhaps are the changes the President made to ObamaCare, re-writing provisions of the law he didn’t like. He got away with it, because a squabbling and divided Congress proved powerless to stop him.

            Most numerous have been his frequent extra-constitutional executive orders. But in some cases, like the one leading to amnesty for illegal immigrants, the court stepped in to prevent the President from executing his unlawful orders.

            Most insidious, though, are the regulations issued by federal agencies with the force of law. The worst offender, in my view, is the EPA, which has, among other abuses, interpreted the broad mandate of the Clean Air Act to put the coal industry out of business.

            One can hope that the next president will put a stop to these violations and respect the balance of power our Founders felt was so necessary to maintain an effective government responsible to the people. In January Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump will take the oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. But do they intent to respect the 10^th Amendment? That would be a good question to ask the candidates in the up-coming debates.

Institutions Crack

            We Americans are blessed. We live in the most prosperous and most powerful country in the world. For our entire short history people have wanted to come here to enjoy the limitless opportunities offered by our liberty, our free-market capitalism, and our system of government. Ours is the longest-surviving democracy in the history of the world, a democracy based on a Constitution that has guaranteed freedoms enjoyed nowhere else.

            But our base is cracking because of a loss of faith in our institutions. Our national defense is crumbling, our no-growth economy is mired in debt, our cities are festering with drugs and violence, while our law-enforcement community is disrespected my millionaire football players and protests based on lies. Moreover, we have a political system corrupted by venal politicians abetted by a biased media and led by candidates with unheard-of negative ratings. Even the FBI, an institution deemed incorruptible from the days of Elliot Ness, has fallen prey to political ambition.

            There was a time when the FBI could not be bribed and could not be dictated to from above. It was truly untouchable. Now that aura is gone. It was blown away by a scandalous dereliction of duty in the Hillary Clinton investigation. We had been led to believe that Director James Comey was a straight-up guy who would not be influenced by politics, who would conduct a fair and impartial investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails. Now it appears that he intentionally let her off the hook. Whether it was at the direction of President Obama who wanted to protect his ideological successor or whether Comey wanted simply to advance his career, we likely will never know. In the face of overwhelming evidence that Hillary Clinton committed multiple felonies (destruction of evidence, obstruction of justice, perjury), Comey caved. He recommended that no charges be brought, thereby relieving compromised Attorney General Loretta Lynch from making that decision. This wasn’t justice: it was pure politics.

            Elliot Ness must be turning in his grave.

Multiculturalism -- Good or Bad?

            America has never appeared to be so divided as it has during this election season. There seems to be no middle ground anymore.

            Take immigration. Donald Trump wants to keep illegal immigrants and Musllims out. Hillary Clinton wants open borders to our south and open arms for Syrian refugees.         Trump and his followers are not against immigrants. After all, this country was built by immigrants. They brought different languages and different cultures, but they all sought to assimilate and to make their fortune in this land of opportunity. They might have been British, Germans, Italians, Poles, and Jews, but they all wanted to be Americans. Their descendants on the Right view any immigrant group that does not want to assimilate as rejecting America’s core values and should therefore be barred the door.

            Obviously, the Left does not see it that way. It trumpets multiculturalism as necessary for the advancement of our pluralistic society. Asian, Latino, and Middle Eastern immigrants all enrich America. Never mind Mexicans who burn the American flag or Muslims who prefer Sharia to our system of laws. Just give them time to assimilate.

            Multiculturalism is not an evil nor a goal to be achieved without qualification. If it is to benefit our nation, it must be tempered by common sense and the realization that everything that is different is not necessarily good—or bad. There is a middle ground on immigration. I hope warring political factions can find it.

A Little Adversity, Please

            I have a new hero, and I’d like to introduce him to my granddaughter Allison who is starting her first year at James Madison University. His name is Jay Ellison, Dean of Students at the University of Chicago. He is not the first to welcome incoming students by telling them that the university is committed to freedom of inquiry and expression. As one might expect, he said that “freedom of expression does not mean the freedom to harass or threaten others.” But then he continued, “…we expect members of our community to be engaged in rigorous debate, discussion, and even disagreement. At times this may challenge you and even cause discomfort.” It gets better.

            “Our commitment to academic freedom means that we do not support so-called ‘trigger warnings,’ we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove to be controversial, and we do not condone the creation of intellectual ‘safe spaces’ where individuals can retreat from ideas   and perspectives at odds with their own.”

            Wow! It’s about time somebody tells all those coddled millennials who claim the right not to be offended that the real world is full of adversity, and that they had better start learning about how to deal with it.

            As expected, minority groups such as the Office of LGBTQ Student Life protested. But University President Douglas Zimmer supported Ellison. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Zimmer wrote, “Universities cannot be viewed as a sanctuary for comfort but rather as a crucible for confronting ideas and thereby learning to make informed judgments in complex environments.”

            I hope Allison gets it. And it wouldn’t be a bad idea for teachers of our new high school senior class to pass Mr. Ellison’s message along as well.

Meet a Cynic

            Is it any wonder that we have become so cynical about our government and our system of justice? Every day, it seems, we get new information about Hillary Clinton’s unethical, even criminal behavior while she was Secretary of State. Yet, the President, the Attorney General, and the Director of the FBI will do nothing to derail her accession to high office. The mainstream media, meanwhile, is obsessed with Trump and utterly failing in its journalistic duty to investigate and report on the mounting evidence of Hillary’s malfeasance.

            Hillary Clinton has spent months defending her use of a private server and the destruction of emails, a felony for which she has not been charged. Last week we learned that the FBI uncovered 15,000 work-related emails that she failed to turn over to the State Department after she lied about having turned over everything. That alone should meet the definition of intent that FBI Director Comey said was needed to recommend indictment. But if that’s is not enough, there is clear evidence of why she did it: she needed to hide her influence peddling to enrich herself via the Clinton Foundation. Want direct access to the Secretary of State? Make a sizable donation to the Clinton Foundation.

            We now have the prospect of a thoroughly corrupt President of the United States “owned” by business and foreign entities who have donated millions to the Clinton Foundation, a president who is open to bribery and influence peddling, a president who will do anything to enrich herself, even if it means putting the security of her country at risk. If that is not enough to disqualify her, what is?

            And we’re not supposed to be cynical?

Never Pay Any More Income Tax

I don't have to pay income taxes any more, thanks to Hillary Clinton's brilliant move. Her tax returns for last year show she gave over a million dollars to charity. The charity? The Clinton Foundation. Talk about chutzpah! She actually took a tax deduction for giving herself a charitable contribution. The Clinton Foundation, a criminal racketeering enterprise, gives only 10% of its income to charity, while the rest goes to pay Bill's expenses and all his buddies who masquerade as employees. How clever!

So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to start my own foundation and donate all my income to it. I'll call it the Milot Foundation and put my wife in charge of  it--at a nice salary, of course. I may even designate the kids, grandkids and great grandkids as co-workers in the management of the foundation's business. I'll make sure the foundation gives 10% to my church, just to make it legit. Finally, when I make out my taxes next year, I'll take a full deduction for all my donations to the Milot Foundation. What a neat idea!

Think I'll get away with it?  The Clintons do.

Love, Mercy and Justice

            Last week a local Democrat supporter wrote that she is going with the Democratic Party because it is the party that supports love, mercy, and justice for all. What nonsense! Is it love for a party to support the killing of innocent babies in the womb, even late-term abortions? Is it mercy to open prison cells and let drugs dealers loose on our streets to resume poisoning our children? Is it justice to apply different standards to Hillary Clinton than the ones the rest of us have to live by?

            We all know about FBI Director Comey making a solid case for indicting Hillary and then not making a criminal referral for political reasons; we have all seen Hillary  perjure herself repeatedly before House committees without being held accountable; we have all heard Hillary lie about the famous video, a lie she shamelessly repeated to the parents of the Benghazi victims as their caskets were rolling by. And now we learn that the Justice Department, no doubt at Obama’s direction, will not pursue the seamy connections between Hillary’s State Department and the Clinton Foundation, in spite of recommendations from FBI investigators to do so. This is justice?

            The Clintons have been managing a Pay-to-Play racketeering enterprise right out in the open, but they have no fear of being prosecuted because they are protected by a Democrat administration that is as corrupt as they are.

            You may choose to vote for Democrats, Madam, because you support the party’s platform of high taxes, increased spending, job-killing regulations, and crushing debt. But don’t tell us that the Democrats are the party of love, mercy, and justice.

           

Fools Will Be Fools

            I can’t recall feeling as much disgust at our politicians as I have these past few weeks, and I’m not even talking about the circuses in Cleveland and Philadelphia. It began with the Sunday shows: Hillary lying through her teeth about Benghazi and the FBI investigation, and Donald Trump putting both feet in his mouth while counterpunching the Khans. Then President Obama took over.

            First, our anointed leader gave a campaign speech praising Hillary as the most qualified candidate ever to run for the presidency. Yes, that same Hillary whose 30-year public career has featured an unending string of scandals and lies, not to mention incompetence at every level.

            But Obama didn’t dwell on Hillary: he used most of his speech to boast about his presidency. Somehow, he failed to mention our $20 trillion debt, the lowest job participation in decades, a GDP below two percent, and attacks on our soil by terrorists he refuses to name.

            Confirming his belief that the incarceration rate for blacks is disproportionately high, he next commuted the sentences of 208 federal prisoners, bringing the total commutations during his presidency to 562.  He justified his action by saying these prisoners had not committed violent offenses, including many who had been convicted of drug dealing, as if providing deadly poisons is not a violent act. Tell that to the mother of a child found dead with a needle sticking out of his arm.

            Then, mirroring the President’s views on LGBT issues, Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus announced plans to name a Navy ship for homosexual predator Harvey Milk. In describing Milk, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council said: “The Navy seems intent on following in the administration’s ridiculous footsteps and bestowing a great honor on someone primarily on the basis of his sex life…A life marred by promotion of illegal drug use, sexual exploits, and lies doesn’t deserve one of the greatest military distinctions.”

            Finally, it was revealed that the President had sent $400 million to Iran in laundered money delivered in the dead of night on an unmarked cargo plane, the same day that four American prisoners were released by Iran. An Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander boasted it was ransom money, but the Administration denied it. It was just a coincidence. Right.

            Obama knows the fools will believe it all. They voted for him, didn’t they?

Unspeakable Abomination

            On Tuesday, July 26, two Islamic terrorists stormed into a church in the French town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray during the celebration of Mass. They made the 85-year-old priest kneel and, after making a speech in Arabic, cut his throat.

            I take this personally. And perhaps all Americans should.

            Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray is in Normandy, that part of France where thousands of Americans gave their lives to liberate France from Nazi occupation in 1944. Any American who has ever visited the Allied cemeteries in Normandy has felt the special bond between us and this land made sacred by the blood of our soldiers.

            The French of that region have not forgotten. In 1964, two decades after D-Day, I happened to be having a mid-afternoon beer with an American friend in Amiens, not far from Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray. The bar was empty, except for three old men sitting at the far end of the room. After eying us for a while, one of the men came over to our table and asked, “Are you American?” When I said yes, the Frenchman held out his hand and said, “I want to thank you for what you did for us.”  I was deeply moved by this unsolicited and heart-felt gratitude.

            Normandy also happens to be the land of my mother’s ancestors who emigrated to Canada in the 17^th century. I share my blood with the people of Normandy.

            Finally, I am a Catholic. The execution of a priest in his sanctuary during the most solemn of Catholic ceremonies is an unspeakable abomination. Worse, this atrocity was committed in the name of another religion, Islam.

            If this does not rouse the people of France--and those Muslims who abhor radical extremism—to excise this growing cancer in their midst, I don’t know what will.

            Whatever they do, I will take it personally.

           

Our Next Civil War

            “We are at war.” These words have been heard not only among Trump supporters like Newt Gingrich, but by Brits, Turks, Frenchmen, and many others who are finally realizing that Islamic terrorists are determined to conquer the Middle East and to wipe out non-believers wherever they are.

            Abroad, we have seen Muslim migrants terrorize the populations of Sweden, Denmark, and Germany, only to hear their governments preach against discrimination. But the people are finally starting to come around to the reality that their governments are not acting in their best interests.

            In Great Britain a majority voted to wrest control from a European Union’s global elite. Underlying the vote was a visceral protest against liberal immigration policies that were changing their society’s traditional values and customs.

            In the wake of the recent slaughter at the Istanbul airport, a failed coup in Turkey underscored a dissatisfaction among many with a leadership sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood and unsupportive of efforts against ISIS. 

            And now, in Nice, we have witnessed yet another horrific massacre on French soil by a Muslim fanatic. Incredibly, the response from the French government has been to reinforce military action abroad. In the face of their government’s fecklessness, it is no surprise that paramilitary groups are organizing to take action against Muslim enclaves.

            Why is it taking so long for us in this country to wake up to reality? We have had the first Twin Towers, 9/11, Boston, Ft. Hood, Chattanooga, San Bernadino, Orlando, and more, yet our president continues to deny or even speak the words “radical Islamic terrorism.” Rather, he will accelerate the import of 10,000 more unvetted migrants from Syria.

            What we are seeing in Europe is the beginning of civil war. If Islamophiles like President Obama and liberal slaves to political correctness continue denying the growing threat of Muslim fanatics in this country, we may very well be heading for another Civil War of our own.

It's All Politics

            My son Marc lives in Florida, but stays at our home when he has business in Norfolk. On the day FBI Director James Comey announced he wouldn’t recommend prosecution of Hillary Clinton, Marc stormed in and said, “I have lost complete confidence in our government.” He went on to recall that during his long career as a naval officer he was subject to very strict regulations governing the handling of sensitive or confidential information, and that the punishment for violating those regulations was swift and severe. He was outraged by the pass Comey gave to Clinton after describing a long list of indictable offenses, not to mention proving that she is a serial and shameless liar.

            Marc wasn’t the only one to voice similar opinions. For myself, I find it terribly difficult not to be cynical about our leaders’ assertions of fairness and impartiality. Comey’s verbal acrobatics to preserve his reputation as a straight-shooter are a case in point. Placing politics above justice, he knew all along that he would not recommend that Hillary be prosecuted, in spite of having a solid case. So he found a way to justify his decision by basing it on a lack of intent on Hillary’s part, while dismissing her gross negligence. He failed badly to make his case, and the speciousness of his logic was laid bare repeatedly during his testimony before by the House Oversight Committee.

            Two points betrayed Comey’s impartiality. First, when asked if Hillary Clinton had lied to the FBI during her 3 ½ hour interview, Comey said no. That was a safe answer, considering he had not been present at the 3 ½ hour interview – how strange is that? -- and no transcript was available for anyone to examine. Second, Comey admitted that he had not factored into his decision Secretary Clinton’s perjured testimony before a Congressional Committee on Benghazi. That is really strange, as perjury is a felony and the FBI was conducting a criminal investigation.

            Is my son’s loss of confidence in the government justified? We might say that it’s just something in the air. I call it the stench of corruption.

Standards Don't Apply

            My son Marc lives in Florida, but stays at our home when he has business in Norfolk. On the day of James Comey’s announcement that he wouldn’t recommend prosecution of Hillary Clinton, Marc stormed into our house and said, “I have lost complete confidence in our government.” He went on to recall that during his long career as a naval officer he was subject to very strict regulations governing the handling of sensitive or confidential information, and that the punishment for violating those regulations was swift and severe. He was understandably outraged by the pass Comey had given to Clinton after describing a long list of indictable offenses, not to mention proving that she is a serial and shameless liar.

            Marc wasn’t the only one to voice similar opinions. As THE HILL contributor Chuck Hobbs said, “…it becomes more obvious than ever that the rich and powerful seem to know instinctively that when accused of wrongdoing, absolutely nothing will come of it, no matter how serious the allegations.”

            A Wall Street Journal editorial said, “…the most revealing words in FBI Director James Comey’s statement explaining his decision not to recommend prosecuting Hillary Clinton for mishandling classified information were these: ‘This is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences. To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions.’”

            Comey’s statement sounds very much as an admission that he applied a different standard to Hillary Clinton than he would to anyone else. Is the system rigged, as Donald Trump claims? No. I think it’s just something in the air. I call it the stench of corruption.

Benghazi Matters

            “Nothing New.” This was the instant reaction of the liberal media to the long-awaited congressional report on Benghazi. Not that the media was looking for damning evidence of their darling’s culpability. No, the report does not find Secretary Clinton guilty of wrongdoing. But is the media itself guilty of whitewashing this scandal? Further, are the supporters of Hillary Clinton guilty of anything? I submit that they are indeed guilty of willful ignorance if not of moral vacuity.

            How, I ask, can anyone dismiss this scandal, the greatest example in our time of pervasive moral turpitude in our leaders, none more culpable than Hillary Clinton. We can blame the failure to provide the necessary security requested repeatedly by our Americans at risk in Benghazi on the incompetence of the state Department under the Secretary’s leadership. We can deplore the failure of the military to act when there was still time to rescue Americans under attack, and blame it on Hillary and Defense Department officials paralyzed by indecisiveness. But we cannot forgive the brazen and despicable lies spread by the Administration in the aftermath of the massacre, all for crass political purposes.

            Benghazi happened just 56 days before the presidential elections, and nothing could be allowed to suggest that the President was wrong in his assurance that al Qaeda was on the run and terrorism on the wane. So Susan Rice went on the Sunday talk shows to blame the attack on a video; the President repeated the lie in front of a United Nations General Assembly; and Hillary Clinton went on the air to perpetuate the lie, even as she had been telling the real truth to family, staffers, and the Egyptian Prime Minister. Worse still, she lied to the families of the deceased as the coffins of their loved ones were passing before their eyes. 

            Hillary Clinton’s epic history of lies and scandals is unmatched in American politics. But to my mind there is no greater example of her soulless depravity than her lies after Benghazi. Do her fawning fans not know how thoroughly corrupt she is? Do they care?

The Brits Get It

            The Brits who voted to get out of the European Union wanted out.  They did not agonize over the economic consequences of the split, they just wanted to regain control over their country. They were fed up with a government that had ceded its policy-making authority to unaccountable bureaucrats in Brussels. Most specifically, they were angry with a government that had opened its doors to a Muslim invasion that had altered their society, their traditions, and their values.

            The majority of the world’s Muslims are peaceful. But Islam, as interpreted by fundamentalists, is not a religion of peace. Fundamentalists read in the Quran a clear injunction to rid the world of infidels. Followers of Mohammed conquered the Middle East and North Africa, and their armies would have conquered Europe had they not been stopped in Tours, Lepanto, and Vienna.  Realizing that armed invasion cannot achieve their goals, they developed a new dual strategy: infiltration and terror. Anyone can see that this strategy is working: send millions of faithful to populate the enemy’s cities; include radicals among them to recruit and train jihadist killers to terrorize the population; and rely on politically-correct cretins to welcome them.  

            We see what is happening in Germany, Sweden, and France, three countries with open-door policies. Only Britain has finally awakened to the mortal danger of the Islamic radicals in their midst.

            How is America facing this threat? In spite of 9/11, Fort Hood, Chattanooga, Boston, San Bernadino, and Orlando, we have a government that brands as Islamophobic all those who fear the immigration of unvetted Muslim migrants and the likely jihadists in their ranks. And we have a President with avowed Muslim sympathies who appeases Iran, the biggest supporter of terrorist groups, and who refuses to even utter the words “radical Islamic terrorism.”

            Is it any wonder that millions of Americans support Donald Trump’s call for a ban on Muslim immigrants? Is it any wonder that Americans are fed up with political correctness? Is it any wonder that favorability ratings of politicians in Congress are in the single digits? As unqualified as Trump is for the presidency, will American voters in November see him as the only way to follow the example of the Brits? Would that stop radical Islam’s strategy of infiltration and terror?

Our Government Is Armed Against Us

            Hypocrisy is an ugly word. Unfortunately, it has become characteristic of so many national leaders, it probably should be listed in the dictionary as a synonym for “politician.” Examples abound, but one in particular caught my attention this week.

            Thanks to a report released by OpenTheBooks.com, we now know that 67 federal agencies unaffiliated with the Defense Department spent $1.48 billion arming themselves between 2006 and 2014. Some of the details are stunning.

            For 2,316 of its agents, the IRS spent a yearly average of $5,000 each on guns, ammo, and military-style equipment. The IRS is scary enough. Why does it need an army?

            The VA spent $11.66 million on things like night vision goggles and body armor for 3,700 law-enforcement officers guarding VA medical centers. The VA not only is lousy at helping our vets, it is now treating them as potential criminals as well.

            The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service spent $4.77 million and the EPA $3.1 million on military-style equipment such as remote-control helicopters and waterproof thermal infrared scopes;  the Food and Drug Administration employs 183 heavily armed special agents; other agencies with armed agents include the Small Business Administration, the Social Security Administration, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Energy Department, the Education Department, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Why?

            If I’m not mistaken, the 67 non-military federal agencies all fall under the purview of the Obama Administration, yes, the same Obama who blames all the ills of the world on insufficient gun control. I have one suggestion for President Obama, our Hypocrite-in-Chief: Remove the guns from your own house before trying to remove them from ours.   

Mr. Hockey Lives!

            One of the greatest figures in sports history died a few days ago. Gordie Howe is still called Mr. Hockey by fans like me who were privileged to see him play, both in person and on TV. I was also privileged to chat with him at an auto show in Toronto back in the 90s.  When I mentioned that his old linemate Ted Lindsay was a member of my church in Rochester Hills, Michigan, he laughed fondly and said, “That old bastard must sit in the front pews because he’s deaf.”

            Howe’s death and that of Mohammed Ali got me thinking about the immortality of sports heroes. Their mortal bodies may not live on, but their exploits on the ice, in the ring, and on the playing field live on in their fans. I still have vivid memories of Ted Williams hitting home runs just for me, of Bob Cousy’s playmaking, of Rocky Marciano’s right hand, and of so many others I worshiped as a boy growing up in New England.

            This kind of immortality, to be sure, is fleeting. It fades with the passage of time and eventually vanishes as all things mortal must. Old guys like me keep the memories alive while we can, just as we hope that our children and grandchildren will remember us after our passing. Otherwise, we must accept record books as imperfect substitutes for memories, just as our writings and accomplishments will give future generations only a glimpse of who we were.

            That’s all part of life, I suppose. Yet, when we talk about the old days, we can still relive the joy of the moment.  “Gordie Howe? I met him. I saw him play.”

Thin Skin

            Hillary Clinton has just the right strategy to beat Donald Trump: get under his skin.  We saw how well it worked last week. Her foreign policy speech was all about Trump’s unsuitability for the presidency, and Trump reacted predictably with a personal attack on Hillary’s character. In the process he missed a golden opportunity to talk about what ails this country on the home front, the economy.

            Last week presented Trump with a big fat target, the worst economic news of President Obama’s presidency. The month of May produced only 38,000 new jobs, when 250,000 are needed just to keep up with the growing population. Worse still was the news that the labor force declined by 458,000, reducing the labor participation rate to 62.6%. The last time we had numbers this scary was during Jimmy Carter’s malaise. Unfortunately, we don’t have Ronald Reagan waiting in the wings to come to the rescue. What we have is Donald Trump going after the media and Crooked Hillary.

            Republicans have no choice but to rally around Trump. But how long will they have to wait for him to address serious issues like the economy? Instead of railing against China and Mexico and what he sees as unfair trade, he should be focusing on what is really killing jobs in this country. He should be asking why under Obama new businesses have grown at the anemic rate of only 2.3%. He should be asking why real incomes for the middle class have fallen steadily and why people working part time jobs can’t find full time work. Instead of attacking everybody who gets under his skin, he should be waging a verbal war against crushing taxation, suffocating federal regulations, and state licensing laws that make it almost impossible for enterprising people to start a new business.

            Growth is the answer to what ails the economy. Growth is the only way we’ll ever be able to reduce our debt. Growth is what idle Americans need desperately. What they don’t need is promises of more free stuff from another progressive administration or churlish personal attacks that distract from serious policy proposals.

Now Batting: Kitty Burke

            July 31, 1935, was a historic day for women’s rights.  In the 6^th inning of a game between the Cincinnati Reds and the St. Louis Cardinals, a woman named Kitty Burke came to bat, the only time a woman has come to bat in a major league baseball game.              A rabid Reds fan, the beautiful nightclub blues singer had been mercilessly heckling Ducky Medwick when the Cardinals star finally yelled at her, “You couldn’t hit a pitch swinging an elephant.”  That’s when Kitty grabbed a bat and went up to the plate and challenged pitcher Paul Dean. “Hey, you hick, throw me a pitch!”  He obliged with an underhand toss, and she hit it back to the mound.

            Kitty Burke’s plate appearance didn’t count, of course, but when I read about it the other day I thought it could happen again for real. There are many good female ballplayers today; we only have to watch a televised women’s softball tournament to see them display their skills. They would have to compete with men to be signed to a professional baseball contract, but I can’t imagine they would be prevented from doing so in this age of discrimination protests.  Now I have to wonder: If a transgender woman (with male equipment) signed such a contract, could she claim to be the first female professional ballplayer?

            Why would I even ask myself such a silly question? But that’s what this whole transgender business has become. Silly. I really don’t care who comes to bat. I must admit, though, that I wish I could have been there to see Kitty Burke step up to the plate in a dress and high heels. I would have cheered for women’s rights like everybody else that day.

            Here's another related tidbit: The Kitty Burke is a drink invented by a Cincinnati mixologist who said it is for bad-ass women who think they can play better than the men they're watching on TV. Must be a favorite in many American bars.