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.