Big Money

            World Series MVP Stephen Strasburg finally rewarded the Washington Nationals for their faith in picking him first in the 2009 draft and sticking with him through one injury after another for ten years. They even gave him a contract that would have paid him $25 million a year for the next four years. Not good enough for Mr. Strasburg: he is opting out of his contract in favor of free agency that will bring him even greater riches. So much for loyalty.

            Strasburg’s greed is not unusual in big-time sports where the mantra seems to be “Get it while you can.” Even college athletes are on the verge of cashing in, as their amateur status is sacrificed to Mammon.

            Sports do not provide the only arenas for amassing great wealth. There are 2,754 billionaires in the world at last count. Silicon Valley seems to be sprouting them faster than asparagus. And so does Wall Street.

            What do billionaires do with all their money? Bill Gates chooses to fund many charitable causes through his foundation. But hedge-fund founder Ken Griffin opted to spend $238 million of his money on a Manhattan penthouse. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg plunked down $130 million for his family sanctuary on 700 acres of beachfront property in Kawaii. But he is not alone in his lust for property: there have been 20 residential properties in the United States that have each sold for over $100 million. Just how big of a house do billionaires need?

            Elizabeth Warren must have asked herself this question when she proposed to tax the excess wealth of billionaires to fund her multiple plans for free stuff. Of course, even if she managed to confiscate all American billionaires’ money, it wouldn’t pay for half of the $20.5 trillion needed to cover just the cost of her public health plan, aka Medicare for All.

            The senator from Massachusetts wants to be President of the United States. As a practiced liar she knows she can’t win by telling the truth, so she is relying on the gullibility and ignorance of mostly young voters who swallow her promises of free stuff. After all, she has a plan to get all those billionaires to finally pay their fair share.

            Mr. Strasburg, don’t count your money just yet.

           

On California Fires

            It is impossible to ignore the images of homes ablaze in all those horrendous California fires.  We are now looking at vast swaths of California real estate that have become virtually uninhabitable—why would you want to build a house in one of those fire-prone areas? Chances are you wouldn’t be able to buy fire insurance. Insurers have had to pay out so many claims in the last couple of years that they no longer write new policies in those areas; in fact, many are cancelling existing policies. Not a good job market for insurance agents. Or real estate agents for that matter.

            What is responsible for all those fires anyway? There has been a lot of finger-pointing going on California. It’s climate change, say radical environmentalists, because it is responsible for the high winds and severe droughts. But don’t environmentalists themselves bear some responsibility for California’s failed forest management strategies regarding such matters as fire breaks and clearing of underbrush? When high winds cause a tree to fall on a power line and start a fire, shouldn’t we be asking why a tree was growing so close to the power line in the first place?

Religious Bigotry

            Do Democrats hate Christians?  It is becoming increasingly apparent that they do.  How foolish.  Do they really believe that alienating Christians will persuade the electorate to vote Democratic?  Yet, evidence keeps mounting that they harbor a deep resentment if not outright hatred for people who prefer to live their lives according to Christian precepts.

            The latest assault was by presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke who would deny tax exemptions to any religious institution that opposes gay marriage.  He’s not alone.  Elizabeth Warren has said that Christians who believe in the biblical definition of marriage are hateful.  Similar comments have been uttered by Pete Buttigieg and Cory Booker. 

            They are not the first, only the more prominent ones, because their presidential aspirations have put their anti-religious bigotry on display. 

            What’s at stake here is not just the selection of the next president.  It is the fate of our country as a God-fearing nation.  If the left has its way, we will be ruled by militant secularists who would have Christians violate their religious principles. 

            We’ve already seen it: banning bibles and Christmas carols at VA hospitals; lawsuits against religious displays on public squares; forcing schools to adopt an LGBT curriculum while preventing parents from excusing their children from such instruction; boycotting Chick-fil-A; forcing Sisters of the Poor to buy insurance coverage for contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs; suing vendors who refuse to provide services for gay weddings; abortion rights up to and even beyond live birth. And so on.

            As Attorney General William Barr so aptly put it recently, “This is organized destruction.  Secularists and their allies have marshalled all the forces of mass communication, popular culture, the entertainment industry and academia, in an unremitting assault on religion and traditional values.”

            The Democratic presidential debates are making it increasingly clear that voters at all levels of government will have to choose between religious freedom and individual morality on one side, and on the other a new secular morality imposed by socialists and others on the left who do not believe we are capable of governing ourselves.

Trumpian Calculations

            The word “calculating” has two very different meanings. The primary one has to do with computations, like in mathematics. The second one is much different; it means shrewd and crafty, or worse, coldly scheming or conniving. I haven’t seen the second meaning applied to President Trump’s decision on pulling troops out of Syria, but I think it fits him perfectly.

            The president’s announcement appeared to be impetuous, a snap decision justified by his desire to “bring our boys home.” It was nothing of the kind. It was calculated to appease Turkey’s president, Tayyip Erdogan. Turkey is a member of NATO and long an ally of ours. But lately Erdogan has been playing footsies with Vladimir Putin and makes clear that Turkey’s ties with Russia will strengthen if we don’t give him what he wants. That would put our strategic air base in Incirlik in jeopardy, and Trump doesn’t want to lose Incirlik’s missiles. Not on his watch.

            So, what is the price of Erdogan’ extortion? Freedom to attack and destroy the Kurds in their Syrian stronghold bordering Turkey. Why couldn’t he have just done it anyway? Well, there were 50 to 100 Americans in the way, and Erdogan could not risk retaliation from the U.S. for accidentally blasting those Americans with his tanks. Until Trump pulled them out, that is. As we see in the news, the Kurds are now being massacred.

            The Kurds have been our allies. The ISIS caliphate could not have been destroyed without them. But for Trump the extinction of the Kurds is a small price to pay to keep Turkey on our side. After all, he says, the Kurds didn’t help us in World War II. Or in Normandy. What ignorant nonsense.

            Trump’s craven decision has been met with condemnation by members of his own party. He richly deserves it. Add “craven” to the definition of calculating. It means cowardly.

Kill All the Lawyers

            “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” This famous line in Shakespeare’s Henry VI has often been put forward by critics of the legal profession as the solution to everything that ails the world from the threat of nuclear annihilation to hangnails.

            Critics have a point. When we witness what’s going on in Washington these days, where there is an infestation of lawyers pacing the halls of Congress, we are justified in wondering if we would be better off without them.

            Lawyers invade the airways, as well. Who is not disgusted with ads from legal vultures who feed on the misery of victims?  Their false commiseration is nothing but a ploy to enrich themselves on the carrion of pain and suffering.

            Then there are the lawyers whose expertise is in crafting the actual laws that govern us. Their language is called legalese. Its purpose is to bury the essence of a law in verbiage so lengthy and obtuse that only other lawyers, paid unconscionable hourly fees, can decipher. For example, The Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, is 2,300 pages long (a pile about two feet high), not including 20,000 additional pages of regulations. Are we surprised at the mess it created?

            Closer to home I was impressed the other day by an offer to switch to DirecTV as my supplier of television service. The offer sounded too good, so I insisted on seeing it in writing. Within minutes I received the quoted prices and something called DirectTV Residential Customer Agreement. Talk about legalese. The agreement spelled out the company’s and my contractual obligations in page after page written in language that I could not possibly have understood without the aid of legal assistance. I counted the lines of type. I could be off by one or two because my eyes were bleary by the time I got to the end. The number of lines: 788. That’s not a typo. Yes, 788 lines of splendid legalese.

            I did not take the offer.

An Act of War

            “This was an act of war.” When words such a these are uttered by a world leader, as U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo did after Iran bombed Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities, the game is changed. It is no longer time for diplomacy and negotiations: acts of war demand a stronger response. Inaction can only be seen as weakness. Or worse.

            President Trump was quick to tweet that we are “locked and loaded.” This threat of retaliation was not, however, followed by an appropriate response. Instead, we were told of increased sanctions on Iran, as if past sanctions have ever had the desired effect on a regime bent on our destruction. Then the president proposed a coalition at the United Nations. But when has the UN ever presented a united front on any matter that could be seen as support for Israel against its enemies. In fact, Japan and France are already refusing to recognize that Iran was behind the attack, even in the face of incontrovertible evidence that it was.

            So, where does this leave us? What did Kim Jong-un do after he assured Trump he would dismantle his nuclear program? He started testing again. Has Trump invoked the Monroe Doctrine and booted the Russians and Chinese out of Venezuela? No, Maduro and his Cuban bosses are still in charge. But Iran is much worse. When Iran captured a naval vessel of ours and humiliated its crew for all the world to see, Trump did nothing. When Iran shot down one of our drones, Trump did nothing. And now with Saudi oil facilities ablaze what does Trump do?

            What will it take for President Trump to start acting as the leader of the most powerful country on earth? He can’t talk his way out of this one and he can’t do a deal with Iran. He must act from strength. He must strike back decisively. Or slink away like a weakling. Like a coward.

            Prove me wrong, Mr. President. Please.

Trump's Worst Enemy

            The Republican Party can breathe easier now that North Carolina’s 3^rd and 9th congressional districts are seating Republicans—at least until the 2020 elections.

            Greg Murphy coasted to a comparatively easy victory in our 3^rd district, which has voted Republican reliably for many years. But Dan Bishop’s win was a close one; next year he may not enjoy another bump from President Trump who rallied the troops on the eve of last week’s election. The GOP has every reason to worry, considering Trump’s fall in his North Carolina favorability ratings from 52% to 47%.

            The president can take credit for a robust economy resulting from his business-friendly tax cuts and deregulation. That one factor alone should guarantee his re-election. But Donald Trump’s falling popularity outside of his base indicates that he has not been able to overcome his worst enemy: Donald Trump.

            The three leaders among Democrat candidates to replace him in the White House are a doddering old man and two radical socialists. In ordinary times an incumbent president with a solid economy behind him should be able to flick off those three challengers like dandruff off his lapel. Yet, all three lead him in head-to-head polls. Why? The same reason Republicans lost the House in 2018: more and more Americans are growing tired of a shallow, ignorant leader whose giant ego prevents him from taking advice from associates who often have a far better grasp of the issues than he does. Rather than listen to them, he dismisses them.

            John Bolton is the latest victim of the president’s vainglorious belief in his own superiority. As a pugnacious National Security Advisor, Bolton had his detractors in Washington, but the five countries cheering loudest at his demise are China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, and Venezuela. Think about that.