The recent comments of Democratic Congressman John Lewis of Georgia declaring President-elect Donald Trump to be an “illegitimate President” perfectly demonstrates the tools of political correctness and censorship when used as weapons.  By threatening the branding iron of racist, and promising demonization and marginalization should one dare to have the temerity to challenge Lewis, liberals believe they have won the day by emboldening their weaker comrades while silencing the critics.

Taking a line from Trump himself:  WRONG!

Lewis is an illegitimate Congressman, a one-trick pony, courtesy of the civil rights movement.  He and others courageously staged their marches, sit-ins and other events in order to advance the concept of equality and for these acts of bravery they should be properly venerated, understood and appreciated.  Lewis was bloodied,  beaten and mistreated during those times, however those facts do not qualify him for high office or exempt him from criticism.  Quite the contrary, those repeated blows to the head in Selma 54 years ago might better have been a disqualifier to wiser voters.  No one should make elected office a career, especially offensive when Lewis, after 77 years on the planet and 30 years as a Congressman, has never held a private sector job in his life.  Armed with a BS in Religion and Philosophy from Fisk University, he is qualified for painfully little.  Had Lewis sat out Selma, he would have been bagging groceries at Piggly-Wiggly.

Lewis has marketed his early life in the civil rights movement into a political suit of armor in deflecting, defeating and delegitimizing his critics.  Even when proven a liar for alleging that Tea Party members used racial slurs against him, Lewis the Legend survived.  The Congressman might have taken a page for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s book that describes why Thomas majored in English as an undergraduate at Holy Cross.  Thomas, who also grew up in the deep south said, for him, majoring in English was, “like majoring in a second language.”  One thing literature had taught him was the value of clear communication.  Thomas said, “The court’s opinions should not be incomprehensible.”  In contrast, listening to Lewis speak is to get a quick lesson in Ebonics.  A sitting United State Congressman ought to have at least a basic command of the English language yet Lewis in incomprehensible.  How does one graduate from college and yet be barely understandable when speaking?  Lewis not only sounds like an uneducated street thug, he reads from a script clearly produced by others.  He is given a free pass because of his history and it’s about time he was called out on being a race pimp in a threadbare, empty suite, circa 1963.

John Lewis, Jim Brady and Gabby Gifford’s all serve the same thematic purpose to the Temple-Masters of the Politically Correct; optics over substance, feelings over reason and intention over outcomes, ceremonial hood ornaments adorning the political vehicle of the moment.

So Congressman Lewis, you go ahead and sit-out this inauguration.  Why don’t you and your courageous colleagues do what you did the last time you called for a temper-tantrum and have a sit-in on the house floor?  So much for the strength of Democrats convictions.  Back in June, 2016, House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi joined Lewis at the gun-control sit-in and promised that they would continue, “until hell freezes over.”  24 hours later the pity-party was over and the babies went home, after their photo-ops ran out of political value.

Hard to fathom that Lewis sees “illegitimacy” where it doesn’t exist but is clueless to the fact that his own Democratic party uses him as their lucky token, Congresses version of the family drunk uncle everyone pretends to like at Thanksgiving and laughs about the rest of the year.

King Andy is at it again, giving away other peoples money and bragging about it.  Hitching his liberal cart to the tired socialist plow horse Bernie Sanders, His Eminence tells New Yorkers that his free-college give-away will only cost $163 million.  Really Andy?  Sixty-four campuses, hundreds of thousands of eligible students, a SUNY combined budget of some 30 billion dollars, more like a billion plus taxpayer dollars dumped into a corrupted system run by corrupt men, all to buy votes.

Andy is so trust-worthy, look at his handpicked leader of SUNY Polytechnic Institute, currently under federal indictment for fraud, Alain Kaloyeros, or close personal assistant and loyalist Joseph Percoco, also facing federal corruption charges.  And Andy knew nothing?  Claiming so makes him either stupid or a liar.  Andy is not stupid, but he is a snot-nosed rich brat who has never had a job outside of the public arena, happily riding the slimy, liberal coattails of his father and former New York Governor, King Mario the Pious, who also never worked a private sector day in his charmed life.

The only calluses on Cuomo’s hands came from begging for money from the blood-sucking lobbyists who control him.  Nothing is free.

Four black youths in Chicago kidnapped, beat and tortured a white, mentally handicapped, teenage boy, streaming their crime live onto Facebook.  Managing to escape, the victim was found by Chicago police, wandering the frigid streets of Chicago in a tee shirt, shorts and flip-flops, dazed, exhausted, injured and confused.  The four attackers cut the victims scalp, tore off his cloths and forced him to drink from a toilet, while beating and berating him for about 5 hours.  The video shows them laughing and screaming about hating white people and Donald Trump.

Had this been a white on black scenario, complete with the racially charged remarks, Chicago would be on fire right now and looting would be justified in the name of social justice.

Posted on dozens of websites are the mug shots of these criminals.  The belligerence, the attitude, especially from the two boys is palpable.  Their photos indicate not only a total lack of remorse, but instead an arrogance of prideful boasting.  The back-story here that few outside of the legal or social work fields understand is that in their communities, these thugs are heroes to many.  While normal people see this video and flinch with revulsion, many of the folks representing the communities these sub-human felons come from are watching and laughing right along with the perpetrators.  These criminals didn’t enter the world this way, they were taught this behavior.

This video is a microcosm of the same reaction and mind-set perpetrated in larger groups, like the rioting in Ferguson, Charlotte, Milwaukee and Baltimore, nothing more than an excuse to commit mayhem while citing some vague rationalization for doing so.

In the case of this horrific crime in Chicago, it was clearly articulated by the thugs about a hatred of white people and more specifically Donald Trump.  In the case of the riots, again, hatred towards white police officers, the false accusation of “Hands Up Don’t Shoot”, which never happened, and the false, repeating narrative that white cops routinely and unjustly kill black men.  Even when almost all of the law enforcement involved were black, as was the case in Baltimore, the narrative simply changes from white police to police in general because truth be told; the underlying issue for black criminals and their supporters is a distain for authority of any kind.  These animals have never followed rules and they spit on the ones society lays down.  That is the definition of a criminal.  Clearly, a large component of the criminal element of the black community is perpetrating a continuous hate campaign against white people, neatly wrapped in the ongoing, lying assumption that blacks are routinely mistreated by the police.

Now it appears that the new, expanded excuse for criminal deeds is the election of Donald Trump.

The four pieces of garbage that committed this barbarous act are the product of a culture and criminal society that is larger and more insidious than most Americans can fathom.  I fear that United State of America is on the verge of a race war the likes of which no country has ever seen.  To those who embrace this sub-culture of anarchy I offer this single prognostication.  The vast majority of civil society will not lay down and take a beating, especially to cowardly, gutless cretins who can only find success when beating down the weak.  The day of reckoning is long overdue.

In January I put an ad in the local newspaper reading;  Wanted:  Canoe or Kayak.

Being a single dad with two teens at home, my thought was that with a canoe and a kayak, the three of us could go paddling together, sharing the outdoors as well as each others company.  The strategy was to buy one of those sturdy, aluminum canoes along with a sleek little light-weight kayak.  I reasoned that the little used canoes littering hundreds of family’s barns and garages would be gladly exchanged for some unexpected income, especially in the middle of winter.  What middle class family can’t use a few found dollars right after Christmas and before the taxes are due?  Hopefully thoughts of paddling would seem so far away as we negotiated price.

As the calls mounted, I heard all kinds of offers.  Eventually, a gentleman called me with what sounded like a really good deal.  Jim introduced himself as the manufacturer’s representative that sold and distributed Old Town boats to regional dealers.  Old Town is a fine maker of canoes and kayaks and has been in the business since 1859.  He had a kayak that was sporting a manufacturing blemish and Old Town did not want it sold via their traditional sales route, so he offered it at a significant savings.  I agreed to meet him at his home.  My son and I arrived there early the next evening after supper.  The kayak was just what I had been hoping for and the price was so reasonable so I accepted without haggling.

The next day, I received a call from a man with a Grumman aluminum canoe, exactly what I had been waiting for.  After getting directions I arranged to meet Doug at his home late in the afternoon.  I arrived at his modest trailer park just before dark.  I knocked on the door of his seventies vintage single wide trailer and Doug quickly ushered me out to the back yard as he pulled on his hunting coat.  We struggled to unfreeze the canoe from the ground as we turned it over and swept away snow covering ice covering leaves forming a stiff carpet of the bottom of the canoe.  Obviously anxious to make the sale, Doug talked up what a good boat it had been and how his kids had lost interest after he bought the “big boat”, which he proudly gestured toward.  “I’ll throw in the paddles and I’ll even deliver it”, he said.  “As a matter of fact, I’ve got another canoe, and old wooden one, that I’ll throw in, no extra charge!”  I was happy to take just the aluminum canoe and I told Doug that I was not interested in the other.  He said, “Come on, just look at it,” as we started to walk towards a broken down shed.  As we swept away even more debris that we did on the first canoe, I saw the words Old Town on a brass placard.  “I just want to get rid of it.” Doug said.  “I’ll deliver them both for free.”  We shock hands as I gave Doug directions to my house.

Doug dutifully arrived at my house, on time, with both canoes precariously perched on the roof of his old pickup, pointing up and over the windshield, the whole family crammed in the cab. As I helped him pull the boats out of the truck and into my yard, I paid him the $100 promised and he happily accepted.  I dragged the aluminum canoe behind my house and tipped it on its side, against the fence.  I went back and looked more closely at the decrepit old wooden canoe.  The seats were woven cane, badly damaged with more holes than seat.  The frame work was basically all there but many of the small wooden parts were chipped or broken.  I took digital images of the boat and the brass placard and called Jim, the Old Town representative.  After exchanging email addresses, I sent Jim the images of the old canoe.  My phone rang later that evening and Jim was excited.  Old Town keeps very good records it seems as Jim was able to tell me when the canoe was built, what the customer had ordered that was special, who the dealer was, when it was delivered and what it cost.  The canoe was custom ordered in 1961 and was hand-built by Old Town.  In 1961, that canoe sold for just over $800.00!  Jim told me that without doing a thing, a collector might pay $500.00, maybe more.

The next morning, I placed a personal ad in the Boating Section of the newspaper.  My phone sprang to life with calls from collectors.  The following day, the high bidder loaded the canoe from the exact spot it was delivered to me not a week earlier and I was $600.00 richer.

I had paid $200.00 for the kayak and $100.00 for the aluminum canoe, both terrific deals.  I thought about Doug, his trailer, his family and his old truck as I drove towards Doug’s home.  One of the kids opened the door and I asked for Doug.  His wife recognized me and asked if something was wrong or if I was looking for a refund.  I assured her no and at the same time, Doug appeared from another room.  I explained to Doug the gist of what had happened and then I gave him $300.00, reasoning that I had everything I wanted at no cost.  It only seemed fair.  Doug and his family were on the verge of tears as Doug hurried me into the kitchen.  He said, “You won’t believe what I was doing when you knocked on the door.”  Doug showed me a notebook.  The pencil entry was entitled, Wish List.  In columns were items Doug explained were for the “big boat” that he knew he couldn’t really afford, but was wistfully hoping for.  Doug told me that he didn’t think there were people “like that” anymore.  I told Doug I was only doing what was right.  As I was about to leave, Doug’s wife asked me if I were a Christian.  I told her yes.  She said, “I thought so.”  As I trudged towards the car, through the crunchy snow, it troubled me to think that doing what is right is now sadly relegated to only Christians.  Is that what we have become in this country?  I sure hope not.

My father loved his garage.  We spent countless hours there together, me working on various cars, motorcycles, or lawn mowers, while dad either watched, talked, or grabbed a rag and cleaned whatever was nearby and dirty.  While not particularly handy, dad decided that if he couldn’t fix it, at least he could clean it.  His old, two stall, wood frame, dimly lit garage, situated in the back of his modest home, was a shrine of sorts.  He told me hundreds of times how much he loved this place.

While dad was mechanically challenged, he nevertheless loved tools, even ones he had no clue how to use.  I think my dad hoped the legal adage of “possession being nine tenths of the law” somehow equated to his ownership of tools magically rendering him handy.  Before the Alzheimer’s, dad knew where ever one of those tools were located in his windowless temple to the god’s of repair and the angels of the less than handy.

The truth is, we used the garage as a meeting place, the replacement for the tree house of our youth.  Men Only.  You could say things in the garage you wouldn’t dream of saying anywhere else.  While we didn’t post signs to keep women out, it seems they understood that this was turf akin to a locker room and as if by magic, they seemed almost afraid to approach us while we were inside.  Neighborhood men, on the other hand, sensed our presence in the garage and spontaneously appeared like salmon going upstream to spawn.

At about the time my dad began to noticeably give ground to his battle with Alzheimer’s, I bought my first home and ironically, it was garage-less.  This would have been a deal breaker if my father had not lived nearby and been kind enough to share his shrine with me.  During that time, my dad’s fight with Alzheimer’s began to challenge him in a greater way.  As his mobility suffered, even going to the garage had to stop.  From then on, after finishing whatever I had to do in the garage, I made sure that I came into the house and spent time with my father, describing to him what I had done and asking him questions about where things were in the garage in an attempt to keep him engaged.

Last week, I did my final oil change in dad’s garage.  Earlier this evening, as I stood in the shadows of darkness in my own garage, part of the deal in a recently acquired income property, I thought about the cruel irony of the situation.  My dad went into a nursing home today.  That officially returns his garage to its former use as a mere storage facility, shrine status now and forever revoked.  My hope is that some of the magic we created and enjoyed there finds it way to my garage and my son.

The 50 United States collectively contain 3411 counties.  Donald Trump’s candidacy for the presidency of the United States won 3016 of those counties.  Hillary Clinton took only 395 (or 11.5%) in her 2016 bid to become the first female president.  If you look at a US map highlighting the election results by colors, it is easy to confuse it with a Verizon wireless coverage map, overwhelmingly red in the middle with blue spots mostly around the edges.  Expressed by measuring acreage per vote, Clinton controlled approximately 5% of the land mass, reinforcing the brilliance of our founders in designing the Electoral College.

While middle and rural America hugely backed Trump, the largest urban centers voted overwhelmingly for Clinton.  In the geographical breadbasket of the US, the three adjoining states of Kansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma together contain 275 counties.  Only four backed Clinton.  Using Texas as an example, the further north you go in the state, the fewer and fewer Clinton votes you find, that is with the exception of Dallas, the sole county supporting Clinton north of Houston.  But drive due North from Dallas to Kansas City, a trip of more than 500 miles, and you pass through two states where Clinton carried but a single county.

So the billion-dollar question becomes; why is it that the tighter together people are packed, the more likely they are to vote liberal?  The short answer is that urban dwellers apparently cannot tell the difference between the smell of cow sh*t and bull sh*t.

The further away you are from the stench of corruption that wafts around Washington DC and the closer you are to the sweet smell of cows, wheat, corn and soybean fields, the more likely you are to appreciate self-reliance and pride of accomplishment over the expectation of big-government handouts to buy votes.

You see, when people in the country have a breakdown, whether it be their homes roof, car, pick-up truck or their tractor, their first thought is how to fix it themselves and how to budget the funds to pay for it.  When urbanites face a transit or cab strike, or a rent hike, their first inclination is to blame someone else and ask why government isn’t fixing it.

For those living and working amongst millions of people packed into a city, it is understandable that they might feel more like a cog in a giant gear, lost in the sheer magnitude of faceless anonymity, toiling away at work that shows no outcomes, no finality, no joy of achievement.  Folks who work on farms, small businesses, restaurants, auto parts stores and the like, find a quiet dignity of relating to their purposes, understanding the goals, challenges and nuances of their work.  They can see the bigger picture because there are fewer moving parts and a clearer image as to the goals and outcomes.

America has finally awakened from its liberal coma and proud patriots have forcefully said, enough is enough, we’re defending our proud heritage.  We’ve heard the encouraging voice of a man who wants to make America great again.  While Donald Trump remains to be judged by man and history as impactful a force as Reagan was, it is clear that Trump has tapped into an enthusiasm and hopefulness that has not been seen since the Reagan years.  To loosely quote Michelle Obama, of all unlikely people, most of the folks in those 3016 red counties are feeling, for the first time in eight years, proud once again of America and to be an American.

Donald Trump had a habit of uttering the single word; “Wrong”, during the various debates when he heard something said with which he disagreed.  It is a word that every professional journalist, media pundit, talk show host and politician should repeat as they stand facing a mirror.  Everyone was wrong about Trump.  Moreover, today and I’m sure tomorrow, those same dead wrong prognosticators will continue to write and talk and lecture and babble about everything they have been proven not to know about Trump, as if they actually got it right.

Look carefully at the voting map of our country, red everywhere with blue edges.  Thank God and our founders for the concept of the Electoral College, which defends against the likelihood of the disenfranchisement of Middle America via the voting bloc of large urban areas like New York and Los Angeles.

The liberal agenda American has been suffering under since Lyndon Johnson has perhaps happily met its Waterloo.  Hillary Clinton was the final leg of the Obama legacy, now vanquished by the people.  Those millions of “deplorables”; bitter clingers clutching at their guns and their Bibles came out in force to address the insults head-on.  Clinton received some 6 million fewer votes than Obama in 2012.  The media machine reminded us of the shame all of the millions of non-college educated white men should feel, apparently so thoroughly stupid as to cast a vote for Trump, oh the humanity!  Nice try, but we all know that this is just liberal code for dumb rednecks, they just don’t have the guts to say it outright, political correctness and all that don’t you know.  What is deplorable is the condescension; the assumed moral authority and the soft bigotry of the low expectations of the “great unwashed” liberals so cavalierly embrace.

During the final debate, when Trump suggested he might not go quietly if he lost the election, the Left went crazy saying this in a October 19, 2016 article in Politico.  “Donald Trump delivered another unprecedented historical moment during the final presidential debate Wednesday night when the Republican nominee, who appears on his way to a landslide loss, refused to say that he would accept the election’s outcome.”  When we fast-forward to the present, we see rioting in major cities by the same leftists who were so quick to accuse those on the Right of acting out when Hillary was to be crowned as their first Queen.

So now, those on the Left call for calm, understanding and reconciliation, just as they would be doing had Clinton won, right?  Oh no, we don’t believe that anymore, too many examples of blown expectations.  Elections have consequences, picking winners and defeating losers.  Hillary Clinton is by definition a loser and as another famous queen was heard to say to her faithful followers just before her untimely demise, “Let them eat cake.”

What was unthinkable for liberals and unsavory for traditional Republicans has transcended from abstract theory to here and now reality.  Donald Trump is the President elect.  Pundits, critics, advocates, they all got it wrong and got it wrong in the grandest of fashion.  Every single step, or mis-step along the way was promised to be Donald’s undoing.  He was out spent, out organized, out classed, a political neophyte treading water in a shark tank with sixteen veteran Republican politicians and he not only survived, he harvested the poisoned media machine that was out to crush him and turned them into his own, free PR firm.

Every time a mainstream politician of either stripe called him out, I gained interest.  Every time a journalist pronounced him as toast, I gained respect.  Trump has promised to drain the swamp.  Let’s be sure no one escapes that swamp before hand because it is not only the game that is rigged, but those who have played it for so long that are as slimy as the muck out of which they crawl.

Good luck President Trump.  Let’s make American great again.  Drain that swamp and then build that wall.

In a re-enactment set to music, the Broadway play “Hamilton” brings back to the audience the concept of dueling.  In truth, founding father Alexander Hamilton was fatally wounded by US Vice President Aaron Burr, in a pistol duel in 1804.

The issue?  Each mans honor.

Honorless men have nothing to defend.  No wonder the concept is as dead today as Hamilton.

Compare and contrast Burr with NY Governor, Andrew Cuomo.  Both lawyers and former Attorney’s General from NY, their similarities end abruptly there.  Unlike Cuomo, Burr was an Army officer, US Senator and Vice-President.  Also unlike Cuomo, Burr was a man with a high regard for his honor and an even higher intolerance for those who questioned it.

Cuomo’s metro-sexual demeanor is the antithesis of yesterday’s men and the values of our founding principles.  Sadly, his example is the rule and not the exception for most of today’s leaders.  Honor, valor, chivalry, humility, bravery, loyalty, are all concepts that may be out of style, but not without value.

The shrewd and spineless leading us today duel with their mouths, fearless of physical retaliation.  Bringing back the duel would quiet many a mouthy politician while dramatically improving the quality of candidates.