The Official “CAN’T FAIL” New Year’s Resolution List for 2016

New Year’s Eve is famous (or, for that matter, infamous) for having to make New Year’s Resolutions which often end up being broken. So, in order to provide some assistance, here is a list of New Year’s Resolutions and how they can be kept, easily.

1. RESOLVE to eat all of the Brussels sprouts you order.                      (…If you don’t order them, you don’t have to eat them…)
2. RESOLVE not to eat any pizza with extra anchovies.                          (…If you don’t like anchovies, it’s easy !…)
3. RESOLVE to get more exercise whenever you are off the couch.   (…Remain on the couch, and it’s a cinch…)
4. RESOLVE to stop nagging the kids to clean up their room.                 (…Make them move out of the house, and this one is easy, too…)
5. RESOLVE to walk the dog three times daily.                                             (…Get a cat, instead, and you won’t break this one…)
6. RESOLVE to reduce your alcohol intake each and every day.            (…Wait until the afternoon, and this one is a slam dunk…)
7. RESOLVE to be more responsive to your friends and family.            (…Allow your voice mailbox to fill up, set your e-mail to out-of-office reply…and it’s that easy…)
8. RESOLVE to vote for whichever candidate does not bother you with phone calls, during the week leading up to Election Day.     (…That way, you don’t need to bother voting, at all…)
9. RESOLVE to never forget your spouse/partner’s birthday or anniversary.          (…Find someone who was born on February 30^th and marry them on the 31^st of April, and you’ll never forget- ever!…)
10. RESOLVE to wait until tomorrow, to do whatever you need to do, today.         (Yet another “CAN’T POSSIBLY FAIL”…)

This list has served us quite well for many years…perhaps it will work for you, too… Happy New Year !

-Drew Nickell, 30 December 2015

©2015 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.

The Official (…maybe not so…) Unlikely Predictions for 2016

 

• Disgusted that Donald Trump actually won the Republican nomination for President of the United States, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, along with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker Paul Ryan, South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham and political commentator George Will launch a “Republicans for Hillary Campaign Committee”…with the motto… “He’s not a serious candidate, and we’d rather see the country destroyed than to let Donald win”…

 

• Having lost forty-five of the fifty states in the General Election, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton demands a recount in all forty-five of the states in which Donald Trump won, and names Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman- Schultz as head of the “Commission to Verify the Results of the 2016 Election”, saying that “we need to ensure that the re-counts are overseen by a fair, non-partisan woman of unquestionable ethics”. Astonishingly, following the recounts in those states, it turns out that not a single voter in any of the states where the recount took place, actually cast a vote for Donald Trump…not one.

 

• Donald Trump, having recently found a pair of Hillary Clinton’s underwear in Rosie O’Donnell’s glove compartment, makes a simple, two-word announcement on live television…”They’re ‘YUGE’ !”, prompting charges that he discriminates against plus-sized women.

 

• President Barack Obama, while being interviewed by Rachel Maddow on MsNBC, is asked “As your presidency approaches its final day, who do you think, Mr. President, is the greatest human being who ever lived?” Obama replied, with a chuckle, “…you mean, besides myself?” Maddow, responded with “that’s understood by all, Mr. President…besides yourself?” Obama then responds with, “I can’t think of anyone, off hand, Rachel…” For the interview, Rachel Maddow is awarded a Pulitzer Prize for investigative, non-biased Journalism.

 

• In response to Caitlin (nee Bruce) Jenner being named “Vanity Fair’s 2015 Woman of the Year”, First Lady Michelle Obama is named “Maxim’s 2016 Man of the Year”. Also appearing in Hustler Magazine, a centerfold of Barack Obama with a quote from General Ralph Peters “What did I tell you … WHAT did I TELL you?…”

 

• The last Gallup poll is released just prior to the November election, indicating that an unbiased, across-the-political-spectrum poll indicated that Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump, 96% to 4%. It is later determined that the poll’s sampling was centered in Greenwich Village and the University of California- Berkeley ‘s Sociology Department.

 

• In a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court of the United States rules that the Constitutional two-term limit for a presidential term does not apply to Barack Obama- but only in the event that a Republican is elected. The ruling is hailed on both sides of the aisle as a win for representative democracy and sound jurisprudence. Later, it is determined that Chief Justice John Roberts, having been named a trustee of the Clinton Foundation, refused to recuse himself from hearing the case “Obama vs the United States”, which sets off a firestorm from conservative political commentators.

 

• CBS News announced that Chelsea Clinton has been named Senior White House Correspondent, because the network “prides itself on unbiased coverage and fair reporting”. ABC, following CBS’s lead, announces that George Stephanopoulos will be named Senior White House Correspondent, for the very same reason.

 

• The Baltimore Orioles defeat the Chicago Cubs in a World Series no one thought possible, under any circumstances.

 

• The National Football League names Patriots’ Head Coach Bill Belichick as head of the League’s newly formed “Ethics Committee”. Also announced is that the Committee’s Player  Representative will be Patriots’ Quarterback Tom Brady.

Happy New Year!

-Drew Nickell, 29 December 2015

©2015 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved

 

Christmas in the Winter of Our Discontent

“Now is the winter of our discontent…”

-Act 1, Scene 1 “Richard III” by William Shakespeare

Some two thousand eighteen years ago, give or take a year or two, a child was born to a young Jewish woman in Bethlehem, because her espoused husband had returned to that city to be registered in a census ordered by Caesar Augustus. The birth of that child, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, marked the beginning of Christianity, and also served as the point of demarcation between the ancient world, and the world which followed, in human history.

Raised as a Jew in His stepfather’s home of Nazareth, not much is known of His early life, other than His circumcision being recorded, where He was officially named by His stepfather, and preaching to astonished rabbis at the ceremony of His bar mitzvah, thirteen years later. Yet, this child would change forever the concept of the meaning of life, itself, and challenge all- believers, or non- to seek peace within ourselves, and in the way we treat one another. His life, His teachings, His death and resurrection, would lead to the creation of the world’s largest monotheistic religion- Christianity, which was based upon the Judaism of His own mother, Mary, but with the added promise of everlasting life for those who believe in Him.

In the two millennia that followed the life of Jesus Christ, the world saw war, upon war, upon war- much of which was based upon religious differences- within and outside Christianity, itself. Supposedly, we live in a country where the freedom OF (and NOT “from”, as some would have us otherwise believe) religion is constitutionally-assured, by virtue of our First Amendment rights. Yet, in a country which supposedly assures all the freedom to worship as we deem fit, whereby there is no state-sanctioned denomination (also established in the First Amendment), it seems today that some religions or, for that matter, non-religions, are more equal than others.

Say something against Islam, for example, and Attorney General Loretta Lynch has promised that doing so will invite criminal prosecution. Make a video which insults the prophet Muhammed, and one might find themselves jailed without the benefit of habeas corpus protections, for years.

Host a holiday party at a public school- one that features a non-religious character in a red suit with a white beard, and just one single complaint by an agnostic or an atheist can bring on a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), effectively shutting down such a holiday celebration. Add a crèche (manger scene) to a public square where a menorah is displayed, and both symbols of the season are brought down based upon the wiles of malcontented non-believers who wish to impose THEIR views on the rest of us.

Work at a store, or a business, or in a government agency and utter the phrase, “Merry Christmas” and find out just how quickly the denizens of political correctness are ready to issue a verbal warning that you are flirting with unemployment.

Such is NOT the separation of church and state, but rather an all-out assault against religion, generally, and Christianity, specifically. Left unchecked, the generations of infants born in this new century will witness the outright censure of Christianity as a religion, and the banishment of Christmas, as a holiday, itself. How sad that a true religion of peace is proscribed from celebrating the birth of its Savior, by the politically-correct classes that only seek to destroy our freedoms and our culture, and how sad for the youngest among us who must bear witness to the acrimony surrounding something as simple as a jolly old elf bringing toys down a chimney.

So, while we are still not legally estopped from saying so, at this juncture in our history, please allow us to extend our heartfelt wishes for a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all who should read this post.

-Drew Nickell, 21 December 2015

©2015, by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.

 

Settling Scores in Las Vegas- the final Republican Presidential Debate of 2015

In the final Republican debate of 2015, hosted by CNN at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, it was evident all thirteen remaining candidates came prepared to substantively discuss the issues of national security and the issues surrounding foreign policy with respect to ISIS.  As expected, the CNN moderators Wolf Blitzer, Dana Bash and Hugh Hewitt did their level best to pit the candidates against one another and make the Republican front-runner, Donald Trump, look like a fool. They were successful with regards to the former, but in the end fell flat with regards to the latter.

That said, it wasn’t as though “the Donald” was sailing through the debate, as the former favorite and once-presumptive nominee, Jeb Bush, finally showed that yes, indeed, he does possess the intestinal fortitude to be combative in a debate. He squarely landed some punches on Mr. Trump, and did so quite effectively up to the point where Trump reminded him that recent polling indicated the vast difference in their respective numbers- Trump 42%, Bush 3%, and said that Bush was “progressing” towards eventually being shoved off of the primary debate stage, altogether, effectively ending Bush’s assaults on Trump. Trump’s best moment occurred when he settled, once and for all, the questions concerning whether he would run as a third-party candidate. In short, he said he won’t, much to the chagrin of the liberally biased Washington Post, which had previously floated a bogus story about Trump running as a third party candidate, otherwise assuring Hillary Clinton of a victory in November. Trump said he would abide by the Republican Party’s eventual nomination and do everything in his power to defeat Hillary Clinton in the general election. By doing this, he also allayed the irrational, albeit frequently-stated, fears that he was secretly attempting to help Clinton win the election, by trying to derail the Republican Party.

Recognizing that Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio were very much in a heated running for second place, the moderators accomplished their goal of setting the two against each other. Both handled themselves with much aplomb, despite the substantive and intensely-debated positions they hold with regards to dealing with immigration and Syrian President Bashir Assad- points on which they differ. With help from Rand Paul, whose own views are somewhat closer to Cruz’s than they are to Rubio’s, Senator Cruz very narrowly won the tete-a-tete on points. Despite this, both Cruz and Rubio came across very presidential and solidified their chances, in the upcoming primaries and caucuses, to come in second place.

Chris Christie also had a solid performance- perhaps the best of the evening with regards to sounding resolute and presidential, while Ben Carson showed the favorable results of “boning up” on the issues, when compared to his previous performances. While the debate performance may help Christie when it comes to the upcoming New Hampshire primary, it is doubtful that Dr. Carson will fare as well in that state, nor in Iowa, as a result of his sinking numbers.

With regards to the remaining varsity debaters, Carly Fiorina, John Kasich, and Rand Paul, their respective overall performances, like Bush’s, were adequate but not strong enough to change their comparatively-lower polling numbers. These four, and the junior varsity debaters- Lindsey Graham, Mike Huckabee, George Pataki and Rich Santorum will not likely last following the New Hampshire primary and the Iowa caucus, which will basically leave Trump, Rubio, Cruz, Christie, and possibly Carson, the only viable candidates left in the run-up to “Super Tuesday”, on the first day of March, 2016.

Setting aside Lindsey Graham’s Obama-like love of all things Muslim, not to mention his rolling eyes and all-too-condescending grimaces during the first round, as well as his emotional outburst in defense of former President George W. Bush, the junior-varsity debaters handled themselves well- but not well enough to change the fact that none of these contenders will be in the running at all, which begs the question as to why they remain in the race.

Going into year’s end, it appears that the nomination is very much Trump’s to lose and, save a major turn of events, he looks to be the likely and eventual Republican nominee. With a united Republican Party- essential to defeating Mrs. Clinton, his chances of winning the election remains as good as they ever have been. That aside, it also appears that Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Chris Christie and possibly Ben Carson could be just as successful- if, again, if Republicans fall into line behind their nominee- regardless of who that happens to be. Hillary Clinton can only win if some disenchanted Republicans decide to sit this one out, upon which is exactly what the mainstream media hangs their hopes.

-Drew Nickell, 16 December 2015

©2015 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.

Crossed Wires – Trump and the Problem America has with Islam and Obama

Hand it to “the Donald”… No one in a generation or two, perhaps even going back to FDR in the 1930’s, has mastered the art of media manipulation the way that Donald Trump has done, and with such little effort.

Be it “the wall”, or the “temporary ban”, or the multiple slams against members of the media or his political opponents in both parties, every time the man says something that no one else has the “cajones” to say, the media goes into a hissy-fit and his poll numbers rise and rise and rise, again.

Such a phenomenon is making even the most arrogant media pundits scratch their collective heads, and wonder in bewilderment how this can possibly happen in an America whose thought processes were once believed to be under their strict and presumptive control.

The short answer is that they just don’t get it- “they” meaning the Obama Administration, the Democratic National Committee, the Democrat candidates for president, the Republican National Committee, most of the Republican candidates for president, both the Republican and Democrat leadership in the U.S. House and Senate, and most of the media including Fox News who are ALL screaming about Donald Trump’s latest proposal to delay Muslim immigration TEMPORARILY until we can improve our procedures for screening Muslim immigrants and visitors, alike.

This can only mean one thing….they are all deathly afraid that the man can win the Republican nomination and win the election…..and here is what they don’t seem to get.

Often in the course of history, Americans have often elected a president as a direct result of, and in absolutely polar opposition to, his immediate predecessor.

In 1920, Americans were fed up with Woodrow Wilson’s internationalism and, realizing the futility of our entry into Europe’s “Great War”, elected a Republican isolationist, one Warren G. Harding, who ran on a simple platform of returning to “normalcy”. While the term was coined at the time, and never really cogently defined, Americans knew what he meant and he was swept into the White House by a substantial margin.

In 1932, Americans were fed up with Republican Herbert Hoover’s laissez-faire approach to the Great Depression, and elected a progressive Democrat who promised a “New Deal”, one Franklin D. Roosevelt, despite warnings that much of what FDR advocated was socialism, bordering on bolshevism.

In 1952, Americans were fed up with Democrat Harry Truman and his “police action” taking place in Korea, which was costing tens of thousands of American lives with little to show for it, and elected a Republican “non-politician”, one Dwight D. Eisenhower, who promised to go to Korea and end the stalemate.

In 1960, Americans were fed up with the bland and blasé Republican Eisenhower administration, and elected a Democrat with movie star good looks who promised to “get America moving again”, one John F. Kennedy, who spoke of a “new frontier”, which sounded exciting as America entered the 1960s.

In 1968, Americans were fed up with the Democrats JFK-LBJ war in Viet Nam and its domestic backlash here at home, and elected Republican Richard Nixon, who supposedly spoke for the “great silent majority” of Americans who wanted this country to return to a time and place where such upheaval did not exist.

In 1976, Americans were fed up with Nixonian corruption and Republican Gerald Ford’s pardon of his predecessor, and summarily elected an unknown Democrat, one Jimmy Carter, who ran on a promise to tell the truth.

In 1980, Americans were fed up with the fecklessness and incompetence of Jimmy Carter’s lack of effective response to Iranian Revolutionaries who had kidnapped American hostages, and elected Republican Ronald Reagan who ran on a platform touting a “New Beginning for America”.

In 1992, Republican George Bush was turned out of office, by a combination of baby boomers who sought the election of one of their own, aided and abetted by a third-party run by Bush’s nemesis, H. Ross Perot, and that is how Democrat Bill Clinton got elected.

In 2000, Americans were fed up with corruption in the Clinton White House, and weary of Clinton’s womanizing ways, and elected Republican George W. Bush, a born-again, religious man whose marriage and family life more equated the values of Middle America.

In 2008, Americans were fed up with Republican Bush’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and, with the help of an adoring media who failed to properly vet the unknown “outsider”, elected Democrat Barack Obama president.

Approaching 2016, America finds itself fed up with Barack Obama and his insistence that radical Islam is not the problem associated with terrorism, here in the United States, and across much of the world. Americans are fed up with a politically-correct mantra of not offending anyone- be they illegal immigrants from Mexico, or radical Muslims coming here from the Middle East, when most Americans know, even in their own silence for fear of being labeled a “bigot”, that open borders and lack of proper screening of Muslim refugees from Syria and other parts of the Middle East, pose the potential of great peril for our own national security…

…and into that void enters a man who is not afraid to say what many Americans, admittedly or not, are thinking- “We need to seal our borders and we need to arrive upon the means by which we can better screen immigrants from countries and cultures who wish us harm”- one Donald Trump. Donald Trump is nothing, if not a man of the times in which he exists, and the all-American antidote to a feckless and cowardly apologist for Islamic extremism, one Barack Hussein Obama. He is (or seems to be) to Obama, what Harding was to Wilson, what FDR was to Hoover, what Eisenhower was to Truman, what Kennedy was to Eisenhower, what Nixon was to JFK-LBJ, what Carter was to Nixon and Ford, what Reagan was to Carter, what Bill Clinton was to the elder Bush, what the younger Bush was to Clinton, and what Obama, himself, was once to the younger Bush….and yet…

…they still just don’t get it !

-Drew Nickell, 11 December 2015

©2015 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved

The World Turned Upside Down

“Listen to me and you shall hear, news hath not been, this thousand year:

‘Since Herod, Caesar, and many more, you never heard the like before.

Holy days are despised, new fashions are devised.

Old Christmas is kicked out of town

Yet let’s be content, and the times lament, you see the world turned upside down’…”

-“The World Turned Upside Down” (old English ballad c.1642)

The first stanza of this old English ballad, which was first published in an English political broadside in the mid-1640s, was written in protest to a recently-enacted law, by Oliver Cromwell’s Parliament, banning festive celebrations of Christmas. This same tune was played by Lord Cornwallis’s military band during the surrender of his armies to George Washington, on October 19, 1781, marking the effective end of the American Revolution. To those who opposed the banning of festive Christmas celebrations during the British Commonwealth period, and to the once-thought invincible British Army, one hundred forty years later, both events seemed to evoke the feeling that the world, indeed, had turned upside down.

In the few weeks remaining before Christmas, 2015, how prescient it seems to recall this ballad at this particular time and place in the course of world history.

Just seventy years ago, the United States and its allies, defeated both Nazi Germany and Imperialist Japan concurrently, in the greatest war ever fought since the dawn of mankind. Both Germany and Japan boasted quite powerful military and naval assets, as well as very proficient commands which had engineered stunning victories across two theatres of war, and yet were defeated in a few short years by a determined alliance which had not previously been prepared to wage war.

The reason ?… dogged determination and the will to win, at any and all costs.

Seventy years hence, that same alliance, now united with its former foes, seems incapable of defeating a comparatively, logistically and militarily inferior adversary.

The reason ?…the total lack of determination and will to win, at any and all costs.

Seventy years ago, a wheelchair-bound and ailing progressive Democrat was spending the final weeks of his life finishing the work of wielding and waging war in a crusade to save the world from totalitarianism. Franklin Roosevelt put into motion America’s industrial and military might to join with its allies to defeat Nazism and Imperialistic Japan at the same time. While he did not live to see the actual surrenders of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, he brought this country and her allies to the very threshold of victory, because he and his country were determined to do so at all and any costs.

Seventy years later, a healthy and physically-robust progressive Democrat is spending the final fourteen months of his presidency, shrinking from his duties to lead the world in its fight against radical Islamic totalitarianism. Barack Obama has been, and is in, a complete and utter state of denial about the evils of radical Islamic ideology, and has decided to “sit this one out” and leave it to his successors to pick up where he has no ignobly left off, assuming that such successors arrive in time to save the world from its own intransigence.

The contrast in seventy short years could not be more ironic, or more obvious.

Seventy years ago, the President led this country into waging war without reservation, without fear of offense, without misgivings or political correctness, because he saw with clarity what the world would become without doing so.

Seventy years later, the President chides this country for its love of freedom and independence, cautioning us against offending Islam by expressing misgivings about waging war against radical Islam (which he still won’t name) and drowns us in his own vision of political correctness to the very precipice of surrender without a fight.

One need look no further than Obama’s speech, on the very eve of the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor which precipitated our entry into the Second World War, to see that fecklessness and cowardice has now replaced what was once determination and resolve in the Oval Office, in a “world turned upside down”.

-Drew Nickell, 8 December 2015

©2015 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.