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.