Fiddlin’ Through the Fire.

These times are so uncertain

There’s a yearning undefined

People filled with rage

We all need a little tenderness

         How can love survive in such a graceless age?

….Don Henley, Mike Campbell, J.D. Souther

McConnell and Ryan and their fellow Republican legislators lived through eight years of the worst President in my lifetime; who just happened to be a very partisan Democrat.  They spoke openly about what they would do when they eventually (and the worm always turns, doesn’t it?) were put back into a position of power.  Now that their wish has been granted, they are not pleased with the terms of the granting.  They do not like their Republican President.  They carp at his tweets.  They belittle his sometimes absurd rhetorical adventures that tend to wander off of the fact-based pathways.  When in his presence, their body language belies their contempt for his claim to the Presidency that, in their judgments, should have been filled by a more conventional party man.  Given the corrupt history of Clinton and Obama presidential pardons, they nonetheless ridicule Trump’s pardon of Sheriff Joe.  They are very much like the dog chasing the car who knows not what to do with the vehicle once the capture is complete.  As incompetent and misguided as their Democratic rivals are, they are on the verge of yielding back legislative power to a self-righteous, pious, arrogant, and corrupt bunch of liberals.  They have lost sight of the one standard that they will be measured by; the first priority of government is to GOVERN.  If they do not find within themselves the capacity to accept this presidential blessing in the form of the tarnished Donald Trump, they will fritter away the best hope of meaningful government reform for decades to come.  They had best find their elixir and dutifully take their daily doses of Trump Tolerance.  He may at times be a loudmouth buffoon who shoots recklessly from the hip with no regard for the truth; but he is their Republican President.  Just dwell for a moment or two on the realities of a Hillary Clinton administration… Trump looks pretty good.

The Democratic Party is also toying with its own form of self-destruction.  Will they follow the antifa, the Black Lives Matter radicals who see racism in every eastern sunrise, the Bernie Sanders socialists who want to throw everything from everybody into one big pie and then divvy it out to the public in common metal platters, the eastern female Senator of false Indian heritage who wanders about flirting with her political ambitions while engaging in fairy tale policy fantasies, and the Schumer/Pelosi leadership that advocates pure obstructionism in place of honest debate and alternative ideas?  Polls be damned; does anyone really believe there is a Democrat, or Republican, out there today that could defeat Donald Trump for President?  As flawed as he is, he continues to address that yearning of most (at least a plurality or minor majority) Americans for the anti-politician who will try something other than WDC business as usual.

Democrats and Republicans, get over yourselves; Trump beat all comers in the primaries; Trump beat Hillary in the general; Trump is President until the next election.  Make…this…thing…work.

And how crazy has our government become when we leap completely through the looking glass to empower Robert Mueller to form a shadow Justice Department with his glorious cast of partisan Democratic donors and supporters that spends millions of taxpayer dollars to chase ephemeral conspiracies while real criminals who have committed real crimes continue to serve in real positions in our real government?  What an absolute farce!  Never before has a more ridiculous and unproven political episode been foisted upon a more confounded public in a more stupefying fashion. 

And Charlottesville… the latest spark for this eternal racial American angst that is the wound that will not heal; the scab that is continually pricked.  The hard truth is that as long as racism remains a cottage industry for any number of vested interests and individuals, it will not go away.  Only when we cease to differentiate between those of different races will we come together as Americans first.  The regrets must be buried.  The sins must be forgiven.  The retribution must be set aside.  Attitudes must be changed.  The dark sides of racism must be dispensed with; along with the patronizing entitlements promoted by those who self-benefit from them.

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The all-too-few times that our President has stuck to the script and presented a presidential decision or address, when he has actually done something that receives fairly universal acclaim as being the right thing to do, the media has been AWOL.  Hillary Clinton is still putting out books trying to explain how terrible a decision the nation made by not selecting her as president and “how in the world did that happen?”.   Obama administration holdovers, embedded throughout the government, continue to obstruct and sabotage any initiative made by the current administration.  The Federal Judiciary is riddled with maverick liberals who foist their own brand of personal civil and social philosophy upon any litigants unfortunate enough to appear in their courts.  Democrats are still in denial about their minority status; Republicans cannot find contentment with the Republican in the White House.  Black radicals fight with White supremacists in city streets; while anarchists are in literal combat with alt-right believers throughout our nation.  The one common thread that weaves amongst all of these and many more vigilante groups of professional protesters is their disregard for the law and civil authority, their lack of respect for personal property, and their total allegiance to a cause that currently serves as their flavor du jour.  While the Middle Eastern cauldron continues to boil, the fat boy emperor in North Korea plays his own personal version of Game of Thrones, the dark and ruthless shirtless one schemes in the Kremlin, Europe romps through its various forms of identity crisis, and the other regions and continents of the planet deal with their own dramas… the United States of America stands in the center of it all in a state of utter confusion; wallowing in self-denial about how ridiculous she appears, how lost and rudderless she has become, and rapidly losing sight of exactly  how essential her leadership and stability is to the rest of civilization.  It is time for all involved to get down to the Heart of the Matter.  It is time for a re-emergence of statesmanship.  It is time for selfless pursuit of a more efficient and effective government that serves all of its people with transparency, honesty, respect, and dignity.  It is time to redefine exactly what government should do and exactly how much government we can afford.  By wishing for those things to return, it goes without saying that I believe they are gone.