Ah, for the days of old! How often we hear people reminisce about the past and how much better things used to be then. I am feeling nostalgic, myself! I dream about the days when the United States may not have been liked by everyone, but was respected by our allies and feared by our enemies. I remember the days when gasoline could be bought, in Indiana at least, for much less than $2 a gallon. I remember the time when this country, through fracking and drilling, had become energy independent after decades of being at the mercy of OPEC, whose member countries were not always our friends.
I remember when manufacturing jobs, that one president had told us were gone from the United States forever, came home, giving jobs to hundreds of thousands of out of work Americans. I remember when unemployment for women was lower than it had ever been since the end of WWII, unemployment for Hispanics hit a historic low, and unemployment for blacks was the lowest it had ever been in recorded history. I remember those years when the unemployment number dropped and dropped until it hit 3.5% . I remember those days. Those were the days when most Americans were optimistic about their personal futures and about the way that the country was headed.
I remember when we had a president who was bold and decisive and who calmed the fire of North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and negotiated better trade deals with China, who has been stealing our technology for years. I remember when that president also negotiated new trade agreements with Canada and Mexico, as well as with the European Union; when he pulled us out of the Paris Accord which would cost the U.S. $3 trillion in GDP by 2040 and we still met the carbon emissions goal which none of the members of the Paris Accord met.
I remember when we had a president who actually moved the American Embassy to Israel’s capital city of Jerusalem, something that Congress had voted to do decades ago, but past presidents had been fearful of doing. I remember the president who did it and other countries followed suit. I remember the president who brokered peace agreements between several Arab states and Israel, as well as a peace treaty between Kosovo and Serbia. I remember a president who made the world safer.
I remember a president whose administration stood up for America first, who appointed judges who follow the Constitution rather than their own personal preferences, who upheld the rights of Americans to free speech, to freedom of religion, and to the right to bear arms as guaranteed in the Constitution.
I remember when we had a president who was a street fighter, who attacked those who had first attacked him with what many called “mean” tweets, but who at the same time was the nicest, most compassionate rich man you could find. Entertainment reporter, Liz Crokin, commented that in all the years that she covered Donald Trump, she never heard a bad word about him until he ran for president. That, it seems, was his fatal sin. She, however, in an article forwarded by journalist Rebecca L. Simpson, enumerated some of the selfless and generous acts that this man has done through the years. I am nostalgic for a president who is like this:
“In 1986, Trump prevented the foreclosure of Annabell Hill’s family farm after her husband committed suicide. Trump personally phoned down to the auction to stop the sale of her home and offered the widow money. Trump decided to take action after he saw Hill’s pleas for help in news reports.
In 1988, a commercial airline refused to fly Andrew Ten, a sick Orthodox Jewish child with a rare illness, across the country to get medical care because he had to travel with an elaborate life-support system. His grief-stricken parents contacted Trump for help and he didn’t hesitate to send his own plane to take the child from Los Angeles to New York so he could get his treatment.
In 1991, 200 Marines who served in Operation Desert Storm spent time at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina before they were scheduled to return home to their families. However, the Marines were told that a mistake had been made and an aircraft would not be able to take them home on their scheduled departure date. When Trump got wind of this, he sent his plane to make two trips from North Carolina to Miami to safely return the Gulf War Marines to their loved ones.
In 1995, a motorist stopped to help Trump after the limo he was traveling in got a flat tire. Trump asked the Good Samaritan how he could repay him for his help. All the man asked for was a bouquet of flowers for his wife. A few weeks later Trump sent the flowers with a note that read: We’ve paid off your mortgage.
In 1996, Trump filed a lawsuit against the city of Palm Beach, Florida, accusing the town of discriminating against his Mar-a-Lago resort club because it allowed Jews and blacks. Abraham Foxman, who as the Anti-Defamation League Director at the time, said Trump put the light on Palm Beach not on the beauty and the glitter, but on its seamier side of discrimination. Foxman also noted that Trump’s charge had a trickle-down effect because other clubs followed his lead and began admitting Jews and blacks.
In 2000, Maury Povich featured a little girl named Megan who struggled with Brittle Bone Disease on his show and Trump happened to be watching. Trump said the little girl’s story and positive attitude touched his heart. So he contacted Maury and gifted the little girl and her family with a very generous check.
In 2008, after Jennifer Hudson’s family members were tragically murdered in Chicago , Trump put the Oscar-winning actress and her family up at his Windy City hotel for free. In addition to that, Trump’s security took extra measures to ensure Hudson and her family members were safe during such a difficult time.
In 2013, New York bus driver Darnell Barton spotted a woman close to the edge of a bridge staring at the traffic below as he drove by. He stopped the bus, got out and put his arm around the woman and saved her life by convincing her to not jump. When Trump heard about this story, he sent the hero bus driver a check simply because he believed his good deed deserved to be rewarded.
In 2014, Trump gave $25,000 to Sgt. Andrew Tamoressi after he spent seven months in a Mexican jail for accidentally crossing the US-Mexico border. President Barack Obama couldn’t even be bothered to make one phone call to assist with the United States Marine’s release; however, Trump opened his pocketbook to help this serviceman get back on his feet.
In 2016, Melissa Consin Young attended a Trump rally and tearfully thanked Trump for changing her life. She said she proudly stood on stage with Trump as Miss Wisconsin USA in 2005. However, years later she found herself struggling with an incurable illness and during her darkest days, she explained that she received a handwritten letter from Trump telling her she’s the bravest woman, he knew. She said the opportunities that she got from Trump and his organizations ultimately provided her Mexican-American son with a full-ride to college.
Lynne Patton, a black female executive for the Trump Organization, released a statement in 2016 defending her boss against accusations that he’s a racist and a bigot. She tearfully revealed how she’s struggled with substance abuse and addiction for years. Instead of kicking her to the curb, she said the Trump Organization and his entire family loyally stood by her through immensely difficult times.”
Ah, yes, I long for the good old days, for what do we have now? A president drifting farther into dementia, looking confused or rambling senselessly at his one press conference since taking office, or breaking into angry denunciation and name-calling of private citizens who have asked him a question he didn’t want to answer. No one really knows who is running the government, but they are not doing a very good job. On day one, one of the countless executive orders that were pushed in front of President Asterisk for his signature cancelled the Keystone XL Pipeline construction, putting thousands of union workers whose union had supported him out of jobs.
Fracking has been banned on federal lands and drilling banned in the Arctic, costing more jobs. Construction was stopped on the border wall and President Asterisk invited illegals to come to America and they are coming, by the droves — unaccompanied children, COVID-infected adults, drug smugglers, MS-13 gang members, human traffickers, and terrorists. Suspected terrorists, well over a dozen of them, from Yemen, Iran and other terrorist hot-beds have been caught by Border Patrol. How many more have slipped through undetected? The illegals are being stuffed into buildings packed so tightly that there is scarcely room to lie down. Children sleep, body to body, wrapped in silver blankets on the floor, most of them in the “cages” of the Obama era since they have already overrun the nice dormitories with play areas, wide screen televisions, and bunk beds of the previous administration.
The president of Mexico has taken to calling President Asterisk “The Migrant President,” blaming (correctly) the border crisis which affects both our countries on the U.S. president. North Korea is saber rattling again, obviously not afraid of this bumbling president, and China is pushing to take over Taiwan, engaging in war games all around the independent island country. President Asterisk offended Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada by refusing to return his call about the Keystone XL pipeline for days. And even more worrisome, he called Putin a “killer” (which, as a former KGB officer he no doubt is) on national television, prompting Russia to recall her ambassador to the United States for “consultations” and Putin to offer a sit-down with President Asterisk to talk out their differences. Not surprisingly, the president turned down the chance to go face to face with the world leader he had just defamed, however accurately.
But perhaps, underneath this all, “Uncle Joe” is just a really nice man, out of his league. Out of his league he no doubt is, but “nice” is something that many would question. His rubbing of unrelated women and girls shoulders and sniffing their hair has a huge “euh!” factor. He has been accused, a credible accusation, of sexual assault on a staff member from several years ago, causing one conservative writer to refer to him as “grandpa bad finger.” He began his non-illustrious career in the Senate by cozying up to the most segregationist members of the Chamber, including Strom Thurmond, Jessie Helms, Herman Talmadge, James O. Eastland, and John Stennis. He praised segregationist governor George Wallace. One of his mentors was Robert Byrd, a former leader of the KKK. He worked with many of these men to oppose busing as a means of desegregating schools in the South. As early as 1977, supported by Senator Eastland, he pushed for mandatory minimum sentencing that would remove a judge’s discretion, and he sponsored the 1994 Crime Bill that incarcerated so many young blacks.
While Vice President in charge of Ukrainian Affairs, his son, Hunter was suddenly hired by a Ukrainian energy company, even though he had no background in the energy field. When the company came under investigation, Joe Biden threatened to withhold a billion dollars in a guaranteed loan that had been designated for the Ukraine unless they fired the prosecutor before he, Biden, left the country. The prosecutor was fired. Hunter Biden is also on the board of at least one major Communist Chinese Company. Hunter, who has also had a history of drug abuse, abandoned his laptop computer at a repair shop and it eventually found its way to the FBI. On that computer are numerous emails from foreign officials thanking him for setting up meetings with his father and others in the Obama administration. One message suggests that Biden senior was getting a percentage of Hunter’s money from foreign countries.
President Asterisk lies constantly. He claimed credit for the COVID vaccines. It was Trump’s Operation Warp Speed that got it done so quickly. He said Trump had no plan to distribute the vaccine, yet the vaccine was already being distributed by the time he took office— under Trump’s plan. He insists that President Trump did nothing to stop the pandemic, ignoring the fact that Trump stopped flights from China almost immediately and then from Europe, that he quickly put together a task force headed up by Vice President Pence and loaded with top medical professionals to advise how to proceed, that he sent Navy hospital ships to cities that needed more beds for COVID patients, that until he saw how badly it was demolishing the country, he followed every suggestion by Dr. Fauci, Dr. Brix, and the CDC.
President Asterisk also constantly repeats the long-ago discounted lie that President Trump called Nazis “nice people.” The New York Times kindly said he had “exaggerated” aspects of the coronavirus pandemic. His administration promised transparency, but President Asterisk is never available for questions and reporters have been kept away from the holding facilities at the Southern border lest the country really see the magnitude of the humanitarian crisis he has created. “Next month, in my first appearance before a joint session of Congress, I will lay out my ‘Build Back Better’ recovery plan,” Biden announced in late January. But it never happened.
In October he said, “if you can’t get the votes … you can’t [legislate] by executive order unless you’re a dictator,” yet by just March 8, just 47 days after taking office, he had signed 37 executive orders, 13 presidential memoranda, 16 proclamations and seven notices, according to Ballotpedia, more than any of his predecessors in the same time period. Speaking of the total number of COVID deaths, President Asterisk said, “That’s more deaths than in World War I, World War II, Vietnam War and 9/11 combined.” The New York Times said the math was just plain wrong. I could go on and on, but it is too wearying to hear the lies again.
Oh, for the good old days of “Make America Great Again” Trump!