A Good Start

            What delicious irony there is in the appointment of Governor Rick Perry to be Secretary of Energy, a department he once vowed to abolish, and of Scott Pruitt to run the EPA, a lawless agency he has long fought to rein in. Similarly, Betsy deVos will, when confirmed as Secretary of Education, ignore the anguished wails of teachers’ unions when she returns to parents the right to choose where best to educate their kids.

            These are but three examples of federal departments that have entangled this country in cobwebs of federal regulations while usurping the constitutional prerogatives of Congress. Bloated bureaucracies are the very institutions that President Trump had in mind when he stated in his inaugural address that he meant to return the power to the people.

            Except for quixotic flailing at unessential issues such as crowd sizes and illegal voting, President Trump, I think, has had a very good start. My favorite image is of him sitting at his desk signing executive orders, while Chief of Staff Reince Priebus stands at his side holding a stack of more orders to be signed. The caption for this image might very well be, “The President at work doing what he said he was going to do.”

            There is more to the job, of course, than reversing President Obama’s extra-constitutional orders. Much of what President Trump has promised to do, like tax reform and repealing and replacing ObamaCare, will require the cooperation of Congress, not to mention a way to circumvent the obnoxious obstructionism of Senator Schumer and the Far Left of the Democratic Party. And let’s see how he establishes bilateral agreements with disappointed trans-pacific partners and renegotiates NAFTA with the pouting President of Mexico. Are we expecting too much of the Great Negotiator?

The 58th Inauguration

      Like most concerned Americans, I watched President Trump’s inaugural speech with great interest. I even re-read the transcript several times, but this didn’t change my initial impression. I found the speech ominous, uninspiring, and even offensive at times. Politicians accused of having prospered at the expense of the people must have cringed.

      What resonated the most, with me, were phrases like “ravages of other countries…stealing…destroying our jobs,” “crime…gangs…and drugs…this American carnage,” and “rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones.” Dark images, indeed.           

      There was hope and promise in the speech as well, but no mention anywhere of Constitutional freedoms of religion and speech and the right to bear arms. He stressed power to the people, but not individual responsibility, free enterprise, or equal opportunity.  And in anticipation of the Women’s March scheduled for the next day, I thought he might have mentioned the Right to Life. But he didn’t.

       In spite of these negatives, I am encouraged by Trump’s vision of the future. Except for perhaps one or two questionable choices, he has surrounded himself with superb cabinet picks and agency heads, and he has indicated that he is willing to listen to their counsel. I expect these talented leaders to dampen the president’s hubris and rein in the tyrannical impulses of his out-sized ego.

       One thing is for sure: Donald J.Trump is going to shake things up. He is not going to put up with the partisan obstructionism of Chuck Schumer and the congressmen who boycotted his inauguration. But he may not get everything he wants either: he will have to get used to the idea that a Republican-led Congress will not always go along with his policies on such issues as trade, taxes, and immigration.      

        If President Trump’s inaugural speech signals anything, it is that we are in for a wild ride. Hang on.

Honoring the 45th President

            On the eve of the inauguration of our 58^th president, it looks like most people have a vested interest in the transition. For some, it’s all about money. Many profited enormously from the rise of the stock market after the elections, but others didn’t, like major Democratic donor George Soros who lost a billion dollars betting that the stock market would crash if Trump were elected. So much for the consequences of pessimism.

            Those who voted for Trump, on the other hand, are buoyed by the optimism of his promises. But will the new president be able to deliver? His opponents have signaled that they won’t help. Democratic members of the Senate led by Chuck Schumer, for example, have declared they will do everything to thwart President Trump’s ambitions, beginning with trying to derail his appointees in the on-going confirmation hearings. They will also oppose the “repeal and replace” of Obamacare and any attempt to pass a budget that will defund Planned Parenthood. And that’s just for starters.

            The opposition to change was not unexpected. But the vitriolic claim that Donald Trump’s presidency is illegitimate was. It’s one thing to examine the causes of a stunning defeat—a flawed candidate, poor messaging, etc.—but quite another to insult the American electorate by saying it was blindly misled by Russian hacking. For the first time in memory, scores of legislators, following the disappointing example of Congressman John Lewis, have declared they will not attend the inauguration in protest. So much for the respect for a solemn ritual and the tradition of a peaceful transition.  

            Donald Trump may not have been the first choice of many voters, including me. But all Americans, regardless of their opinion of the man, must unite in honoring our system of free and open elections and respecting the office of the presidency. Doing otherwise brings dishonor on those who should know better.

Trump: Obama's Legacy

            For the last eight years I have been an unrelenting critic of Barack Obama. With this final essay I say goodbye to the Narcissist-in-Chief as he struts off the world stage, vaunting his many imagined accomplishments and denying responsibility for his notable failures. But should we be thankful for anything he has done for this country?

            Obama’s legacy can be summarized in a few words. On the international front, those words are Aleppo, Jerusalem, and the South China Sea. Among many others, these best represent disasters resulting from America’s failure to lead.

            Aleppo has become the symbol of Obama’s cowardice. Half a million people have died in Syria and five million displaced because Obama chose to do nothing when Assad crossed the president’s red line and launched the genocide of his own people. Capitalizing on the President’s timidity, Russian and Iran, America’s sworn enemies, moved in, while ISIS continued to fill the vacuum created by Obama’s failure to secure the peace in Iraq.

            Jerusalem symbolizes Obama’s treachery in the abandonment of America’s staunchest ally in the Middle East. No president has ever failed to defend Israel against the pack of anti-Semitic jackals in the United Nations. Not until Obama did this past December.

            The South China Sea is the latest symbol of China’s ascendancy in the Pacific. Its militarizing of the area mocks Obama’s impotence in maintaining America’s dominance in the Far East, as well as his clueless response to North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons aimed at our shores.

            On the domestic front, President Obama has given us racial division, unsustainable national debt, economic anemia, the worst labor-force participation in half a century, and a gaggle of leftist policies on energy, health care, and the environment, not to mention a blind eye to the nature of Islamic terrorism.

            It has taken the American voter eight years to finally put an end to the corrosiveness of Obama’s bankrupt agenda. For all his efforts to fundamentally change America both at home and on the world stage, perhaps we can be thankful for Barack Obama’s true legacy, which, for better or for worse, can be summarized in two words: Donald Trump.

           

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.