A Somewhat Saterical Look at 2016

Hillary Clinton. Yes, I’m enormously pleased for the former secretary of state. Were she any sort of honest mortal being who hadn’t exploited her position of public trust to make herself one of the few well-heeled people in the country, she would, in all likelihood be our next president. Had she not been so schizoid that she readily and shamelessly obstructed our nation’s transparency laws, she would, in all likelihood be our next president. Had she not been so haughty in her pending “victory” and campaigned in Wisconsin once, or Michigan more, she would, in all likelihood, be our next president. I’m thankful she wasted time campaigning in Arizona. Had Hillary campaigned like she wanted the position and not like she was predestined for it and had it already in hand, she would, in all likelihood be our next president. She did not and will not be our next President, and for that I and America's basket full of deplorables are forever thankful. 

The media, the fourth estate. Thank you, journalists, for being yourselves. From your bogus “fact checking” to important think-pieces on how the GOP may collapse, you could not have helped more if you were on the payroll. After years of working to keep your agenda-driven bias hidden behind a tinny veneer of credibility, you put a match to the whole damn thing. What a delight it was to watch your faces on election night as reality set in and the tears began to flow. It couldn’t have happened to more deserving group of liberal lapdogs. The thin air inside your elitist New York and Washington bubble led you to think calling half the country racist for eight years and telegraphing your elation over the expectation of calling them sexist for the next eight was a well-thought out plan. On top of all that, I am eternally thankful for your disinclination (or incompetence) to learn from any of this. Please, double down on your arrogance. Continue to talk about anyone who lives in a state that doesn’t have a coastline. And if you happen to find yourself enduring a layover in an airport somewhere between NYC and LA, start calling everyone uneducated and poor. Please, continue making someone like myself happy.

Curses, particularly in sports. Hey, my whole blogging life isn’t politics. I’m a Cubs fan. Do you not think the Cubs  and Indians World Series was amazing? The best part about the World Series this year was no matter which team won, it wasn’t going to be a repeat. The curse of the Billy goat is no more. The best part about sports curses is the emotional investment fans put in them. It’s never that their team was beaten, it was that celestial dynamisms prevented them from victory. There’s something fun about seeing long-suffering Cub fans finally have something to celebrate, especially when they’ve beaten a curse. "Go Cubs Go." There is, of course, much more for which to be thankful this year, but candidly isn’t the fact that Democrats were subdued at the ballot box enough for one year? Even the media’s implosion would have been enough for one year. 

Let 2016 be remembered as the year Bill and Hillary Clinton were sent packing, many in the media were unmasked and were caught with their pants down. Cubs are World Champions. If that isn’t enough to be thankful for, you’re probably a democrat or a member of the left leaning media with your pants down or an Indians fan.

End of Story, Trump is Our Next President

Clinton got "65,844,954" votes to Trump’s "62,979,879." So yes, she won the popular vote. But those are not the only numbers Americans need to know about the heated race that left a leftist movement stunned and disoriented. Clinton won California by “4.2 million votes and New York by 1.6 million,” meaning that across 48 of the 50 states, Trump was the victor by about 3 million votes in the popular vote. Including New York, he was the popular vote winner by more than a million votes. Vice President-elect Pence put it in another perspective, revealing that Trump won “30 out of 50 states, and 2,623 counties, to Clinton’s 20 states or 489 counties.”

The constitutional reality is that the “nation’s founders set up a system where there would be a popular vote, but the actual decision is made by 538 members of the Electoral College, members appointed largely by political parties in the states, with one designated for each congressional district or U.S. Senate seat in Congress.” In many states they are legally obligated to vote the way their state’s voters do. The Electoral College was set up to assure that a handful of population centers across the country cannot in perpetuity control the presidency. That’s well illustrated by the 2016 results, where Trump won vast swaths of America, but still came up short in the popular vote because of the results, essentially, in one state, California. The Electoral College addresses that because the minimum number of states a candidate must win, and these include the large population centers, to win the presidency, is 12 states.

There, Trump won 306 on election night, and ended up with 304 after two, influenced by what has been described as a “coup” attempt trying to prevent him from taking office, voted against the wishes of their states’ voters. Hillary Clinton ended up with 227, having lost five faithless electors of the 232 she won on election night.

There are some in the Democrat party who are simply not going to acclimate to a President Trump. He is, from their standpoint, appalling or ignoble or… They live in a delusional world. Worse yet, many apparently suffer from persecutory delusions. That’s why they lost the election: they decided to join the ranks of the incorrigibility delusional. 

In summation: The Republicans -- that horrid "minority party" that has somehow hijacked the reins of power by exploiting an "arcane framework" (Electoral College) -- will control fully two-thirds of  America's governorships in 2017.  Only "16 of 50" states will have a Democratic chief executive. Unfortunately, North Carolina, my state of residence is one of the 16. And since many liberal pundits choose to cite population percentages to diminish the legitimacy of the Senate, allow me to mention that the "33 states" with Republican leaders represent a large majority of the US population -- nearly "200 million people," in total.  Furthermore, the GOP will hold majorities in a staggering, sweeping "68 of America's 99 state legislative bodies." That all-time high represents complete dominance, left unremarked upon in an extended harangue about minority rule.  Maybe the neo-left ignored these figures because, like many liberals, they are myopically fixated on the power of the federal government.  But our founders vested enormous power in the states, just as they designed a Senate that would serve as a backstop against sheer nationwide majoritarianism (not really a word but you get my point).  It may therefore be worthwhile for left-leaning politicians and pundits alike to spend less time whining about an “arcane framework” and more time examining how Democrats must expand their appeal beyond coastal liberals and urbanites.

Acknowledgement of a Military Leader's Historical Prayer

When President-elect Donald Trump announced General James “Mad Dog” Mattis as his pick for the secretary of defense. Trump told a crowd, “They say that he is the closest thing to Gen. George Patton that we have."

General George Patton looms large over American political history, especially after George C. Scott’s masterful screen performance as the World War II general. Few scenes in American cinematic history are as iconic as Scott, in character, pacing before the American flag and delivering a speech to his men. And yet, for all of Hollywood’s hero-making, the real man was even more of a legend — and this Christmas message proves just that.

During the Christmas season of 1944, Gen. Patton’s Third Army was bogged down as he was trying to reach Bastogne, a town in southern Belgium that was held by 15,000 American troops but encircled by over 50,000 Nazi soldiers bearing down on it. Unfortunately, due to the weather, Gen. Patton didn’t have the air cover he needed to relieve the 15,000 brave American troops holding off the Germans.

That’s when he decided to rely on the power of prayer. Patton had Chaplain  James O’Neill compose a card to be distributed to each one of the 250,000 troops under his command, and had all of the men pray this simple prayer:

“Almighty and most merciful Father, we humbly beseech Thee, of Thy great goodness, to restrain these immoderate rains with which we have had to contend,” it read. “Grant us fair weather for Battle. Graciously hearken to us as soldiers who call Thee that, armed with Thy power, we may advance from victory to victory, and crush the oppression and wickedness of our enemies, and establish Thy justice among men and nations. Amen.”  On the reverse side of the prayer, Patton wrote, “To each officer and soldier in the Third United States Army, I wish a Merry Christmas. I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty, and skill in battle. We march in our might to complete victory. May God’s blessings rest upon each of you on this Christmas Day. – G.S. Patton, Jr., Lt. Gen. Commanding, Third United States Army.”

Freeing Christmas From the Bonds of Secularism

In today’s America, a nation overwhelmingly Christian, truthfully any sign of Christmas in public can now lead to criticisms, legal action, animated remonstrations, intimidations, coercions and hurt feelings… Secular liberals say they’re just protecting the constitutional rights of non-Christians who don’t want to see or hear about Christmas. But what about the constitutional rights of millions of Americans who simply want to celebrate their traditional holiday—without insulting anyone else but also without having to hide behind closed doors?

Freedom of religion is not just the freedom to worship as you please. Freedom allows faiths to freely celebrate their own faith and to acknowledge their place in the mosaic that makes America what it is. Seeing other faiths celebrate their own beliefs openly—from Jews celebrating Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kuppur or Hanukkah, to Muslims celebrating the end of Ramadan—does nothing to diminish my faith in Christ. It reaffirms that a vibrant faith can be a driving force for good in a person’s life.

But with Christmas, the secularists are doing everything they can to take Christ out of the Christian holiday that celebrates the coming of Emmanuel—God with us. Christ did not come to justify Santa Claus or to provide another reason to support American commercialism. He came that through faith people might come to have a relationship with God.

Some have called it a War on Christmas, but it might better be described as a politically correct assault on the very word Christmas. Sure, Christians are still free to worship in their churches, but publicly acknowledging the Christ in Christmas is increasingly avoided for fear of offending.

Even the beloved Hallmark Channel loves to fill the season with emotional, even tear-jerking story lines of Christmas, but the focus is not on Christ, but on the “Spirit of Christmas.” I bet the reader did not realize that. Take it from someone who watches a Hallmark movie a night during the Christmas season - the spotlight is not on Christ. You could be hard pressed to find traditional Christian carols celebrating the coming of the Christ child on FM radio or Sirius stations. Not to be outdone, most public schools now refuse to include any Christmas carol in their holiday programs.

If there is a war on Christmas, where is Christ’s warriors? It appears that most Christians are settling for silence instead of holding up their side of the battle. Maybe we could let a little of Trump’s war on political correctness bring believers out of their trenches or bunkers. It’s time to let Christmas be Christmas. Let Hanukkah be Hanukkah. Let your faith be visible.

The United Nations and Wonder Woman, A Comical Affair

Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird. It's a plane. It's .  .  .  the United Nation’s latest Honorary Ambassador – Wonder Woman. As death, destruction and mayhem continue to spread across the globe from Syria to Venezuela, the bureaucracy that is the United Nations has decided the best response to aggressive despots and global terrorism is placing their faith in a fictitious comic book hero. If one needed any further proof the U.N. has been reduced, quite literally, to a farce, this should remove all doubt.

The U.N.’s attempt to appropriate a beloved, albeit somewhat dated comic book protagonist, into yet another superficial, politically-correct campaign, would truly be comical if not for the taxpayer money used to support a bloated bureaucracy that has become no more effective at keeping global order than a social media “slacktivist” campaign. And, that’s when its officials are actually, dedicated to a public good, rather than being busted for corruption or having its “peace-keeping” forces charged with committing atrocities in the Third World countries they are supposed to be helping.

And still, the U.S. government keeps shoveling millions of dollars annually into the global bureaucracy in NYC’s Manhattan borough. Last year alone, American taxpayers subsidized more than "22% of the U.N.’s general budget, and more than 28% for its peacekeeping missions." Now, thanks to the largesse of the American taxpayers, oppressed girls and women in countries that engage in institutional misogyny, including Pakistan, India, and the Congo, can rest easier at night knowing Wonder Woman has their backs.

This is the nature of all government bureaucracies, the U.N. long ago lost sight of its original mission; blinded by its own self-importance as it extends its reach far beyond simply fostering “international peace and security” and “respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples.” And, the U.N.’s politically-correct mentality, reflecting the pacifist worldview of its European members rather than America’s strong spirit of defending liberty, has reduced its efficacy to levels hereto fore unimagined. This may be fine for Democrats who glow warmly at the mention of “international cooperation,” but to those who are concerned about equal rights and self-determination, such actions ring hollow.

If the U.N. were truly committed to empowering women across the world, it would reject countries like Pakistan and Iran, which oppose rights for women, from positions of “leadership” on such issues. And, if the organization truly was committed to the self-determination and freedom of individuals, it would cease embracing its relentless campaign to undermine the concept of an individual right to keep and bear arms. 

As Paul Harvey, would famously say: "And now, for the rest of the story." As is more common than not, the UN has backtracked on another political decision with little to no thought as to what possessed the organization in the first place to do what it did. Less than two months ago, Wonder Woman was awarded a surprising new title. She was appointed a UN ambassador for Gender Equality, and declared by the United Nations to be "the most iconic female superhero of all time"! Her career lasted but a short time, though. In other words her new line of business lasted about as long as the typical UN negotiated truce. December 14th less than two months after appointing her as their ambassador, the United Nations effectively  'fired' Wonder Woman.

The New Me is Today's Me

I used to think I was just a regular person, but I was born white, which now - whether I like it or not, makes me a racist and responsible for slavery.

I am a fiscal and moral conservative, which by today's standards, makes me a fascist because I plan and support myself.

I went to High School and have held a job and am here - not because I earned it, but because I was advantaged.

I am heterosexual, which according to some activist gay folks, now makes me a homophobe.

I am non-union, which makes me a traitor to the working class and an ally of big business.

I am not a Muslim, which now labels me as an infidel.

I believe in the 2nd Amendment, which now makes me a member of the vast NRA gun lobby.

I am older and retired, which makes me a useless old person who does not understand Facebook.

I think and I reason, therefore I doubt much that the mainstream media tells me, which must make me a reactionary.

I am proud of my heritage and our inclusive American culture, which makes me a
xenophobe.

I value my safety and that of my family, and I appreciate the police and the legal
system, which makes me a right-wing, cop-loving extremist.

I believe in hard work, fair play, and fair compensation according to each individual's merits, which today makes me an anti-socialist.

I believe that our current system guarantees freedom from effort - not freedom of
outcome or subsidies which must make me a borderline sociopath.

I believe in the defense and protection of the homeland for- and by- all citizens, which now makes me a militant.

I am proud of our flag, what it stands for and the many who died to let it fly, so I
stand and salute during our National Anthem which takes me back to where I started - I must be a racist.

Please help me come to terms with the new me, because I am just not sure who I am anymore!

I would like to thank all my friends for sticking with me through these abrupt, newfound changes in my life and my thinking!

I just cannot imagine or understand what is happened to me so quickly! Funny (or
sadly), it has all taken place over the last 7 or 8 years! And if all this nonsense wasn't enough to deal with. I'm now afraid to go into either restroom!

So Much Ignorance on Display

Are you as tired as I about hearing various celebrities talking about things they know so little about? Take for instance those who lectured Vice President elect, Pence during the musical play “Hamilton.” These clowns in ‘Hamilton’ are playing a role. They have their lines. They sing their lines in songs, and that’s it. And they think they are experts. Here's an eye opener cast: In reality, Alexander Hamilton was very much like President-elect Donald Trump.

You know what the show’s about? I mean, it’s Hamilton. It’s about a vice president who shoots a political rival and gets away with it, Burr, in a duel. Do you know that Alexander Hamilton was an immigration hawk? I wonder if the people in this cast have any idea who they are feting and praising. For that matter the same could be asked of most liberal ideologues. Alexander Hamilton was a nationalist. Alexander Hamilton, he didn’t want anybody getting in the country he didn’t personally approve of.

Alexander Hamilton was a profoundly unique individual, and I don’t think he is at all the kind of guy the people in this cast would celebrate if they literally knew who he was. I think they know their lines and that’s it. They’re dangerous this way. Leftists are dangerous. They’re actors and they portray roles and they learn lines, and they think they are then experts.

Everything these people on stage profess to hate right now, he was there either creating, inventing, or founding. That’s why I say, ‘I don’t think they have the slightest idea who the guy really was,’ and here they are highly acclaimed.

The lecture given to Pence by the Hamilton cast, reference diversity is most amusing, even comical since the presentation has specifically sought “nonwhite” performers for its show. One of the especially hilarious parts of the cast of “Hamilton” lecturing Mike Pence was all their talk of diversity and how scared they are because, you know, they’re all gay or they’re all transgender or they’re all lesbian and Mike Pence and Trump are coming for them and we don’t want to be put in the camps, please don’t put us in the camps! They literally think this because this is how they have been educated, it’s how they’ve been taught. … But not only do they believe it, they think they’re the only ones who know it and that makes them an authority in American history (revised as it is).

Now, their talk of diversity, I don’t know if you’ve heard this about “Hamilton.” Prior to research, this writer had not. The producers of “Hamilton” got into trouble in March because their casting call for an upcoming touring company specifically stated that they were seeking nonwhite performers. They did not want anybody but people of color in the cast in one of the touring companies of this production. What happened to the rules of Actors Equity? What about state and federal law? Has everyone forgotten about that?  Somehow it was never investigated by the Department of Justice, Obama, or anybody else. So much for diversity! So much for equality! So much for manners! And oh, so much ignorance on display.

So She Thinks, Therefore She Must Be

Long before Pelosi began her lifelong career in politics, she was the daughter of a Democratic congressman from Maryland and a mayor of the deeply political city of Baltimore. In other words, she was born into government royalty. Or, so she thinks, therefore she must be.

Pelosi recently excoriated the president-elect’s choice to head HUD, Dr. Ben Carson, as a “disconcerting and disturbingly unqualified choice.” The nation, Pelosi exclaimed, deserves someone with “relevant experience” in the position. Knowing this about Pelosi also makes it easy to understand why she’d say such disparaging things about Dr. Carson. He is, after all, a black man who was able to avoid the poverty cycle in which Democrats love keeping U.S. minorities mired.

Pelosi is more than the face of Democratic denial. She’s the face of the party’s most dastardly deed: Pushing handouts that enable the poverty cycle rather than providing the tools to break it. And that raises another point: Other than keeping people in it to ensure people vote for handouts promised by Democrats, what does Pelosi and her ilk know about poverty that qualifies her to rate candidates to head HUD? After all, it’s probably safe to wager a lower middle class black kid from Detroit knows a little more about beating poverty than a congressman’s wealthy daughter from Baltimore.

This is Reason Enough for Electoral College

From what I understand, they're still counting the votes, going on four weeks after the election, in California (as they have been in Michigan, Wisconsin and may in Pennsylvania). In Brazil, a nation with much more challenging geography, they manage to do it in five hours.

The seemingly endless dawdling of California's (presumably union-represented) public employees has obscured two interesting things about this year's presidential election. The first is that Electoral College loser "Hillary Clinton won a plurality of the popular vote by a considerably wider percentage than her counterparts in the elections of 2000 and 1888, though she apparently won by a slimmer margin than Tilden in 1876." The second is that the most populous state was a political outlier, voting at one extreme in the national political spectrum.

You can see this easily if you array the states in order of Democratic percentage. At the top, before any state, was the District of Columbia, where 91 percent of voters chose Clinton. Next, some 5,000 miles away, was Hawaii, which went 63 percent for Clinton. Then came giant California, the nation's most populous state at 62 percent Democratic.

Well, one might say; California has been called the Left Coast for quite a while. Just about everyone in the Silicon Valley and in Hollywood with few exceptions supported Clinton. White middle-class families have been pretty much priced out of the state by high taxes and housing costs, and the Hispanic and Asian immigrants who have replaced them vote far more Democratic. If California continues to occupy one extreme of the national political spectrum, the Democratic Party needs to make a case with more appeal beyond California if it wants to win 270 electoral votes.

All of which prompts renewed arguments about the Electoral College. The case for abolishing it is simple: Every American's vote should count the same. But it won't happen. Two-thirds of each house of Congress and 38 of the 50 state legislatures will never go along.

The case against abolition is one suggested by the Framers' fears that voters in one large but highly atypical state could impose their will on a contrary-minded nation. That largest state in 1787 was Virginia, home of four of the first five presidents. New York, California, and Illinois  by remaining closely in line with national opinion up through 1996, made the issue moot.

California's 21st-century veer to the left makes it a live issue again. In a popular vote system, the voters of this geographically distant and culturally distinct state, whose contempt for heartland Christians resembles imperial London's disdain for the "lesser breeds" it governed, could impose something like colonial rule over the rest of the nation. Sounds exactly like what the Framers strove to prevent.

Millennials, Celebrities and Regular Americans

Have we not in the past few weeks witnessed millennials cry, celebrities write lengthy diatribes about the death of America and regular Americans roll their eyes in disgust at the left’s reaction to President-elect Donald Trump?

Let us look at the hypocrisy of many on the Left. They proclaim that everyone is racist, but they themselves take actions that fit into their definition of what a “racist” really is. How many of these democrats who are now probably “literally shaking” thought they could demonize white America and get away with it. They never imagined that that sort of racist strategy would backfire.

Trump’s election is the apocalypse Scenario for Democrats because they were just on the verge of turning the whole country into California through mass immigration. Democrats have turned into the party of hollow people, and as a result they have lost touch with everyday Americans who just want to afford a pleasant house and send their kids to a nice school.

Trump isn’t the devil-Nazi-fascist-anti-everything person liberals are trying to make him out to be. He’s just a guy who wants to help America become great again and recover from the calamitous eight years we have lived through. If that’s what liberals define as “hate speech,” then they need to go pick up a dictionary, better yet, there's always Wikipedia dictionary.

The Beast is Dead

Ding dong! The beast is dead! Oh, what a day of rejoicing there must have been in “Little Havana” (Miami). Or at least that’s how the families of the 78,000 murdered victims of Fidel Castro, those who fled his dictatorship, and those who love freedom responded when the news of the dictator’s death was reported on Sunday. Castro was a tyrant who imposed communism on Cuba for over 60 years while torturing and killing tens of thousands more who disagreed with him. Under his heavy-handed rule, Cubans were living in abject poverty, an island nearly frozen in time since before Castro assumed power, while he and his brother lived in extreme luxury.Bottom of Form

But as shocking as it might be to believe, there are some—including a handful of world leaders—who are in mourning. One is President Barack Obama who failed to mention any of Castro’s atrocities over the decades, but stated: “History will record and judge the enormous impact of this singular figure …” Former President Jimmy Carter’s statement wasn’t much better: “We fondly remember our visits with him in Cuba and his love of his country.” But the most notably ridiculous statement came from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who called Castro “revolutionary” and a “larger-than-life leader who served his people.” Yes Mr. Trudeau, Fidel Castro served his people on a platter, sprinkled with their blood amid the cries of the bereaved.