What Used To Be A Beautiful City

On Sunday, BizPacReview posted an article about a business in Portland, Oregon, that put a sign on their door:

…Marcy Landolfo has shuttered her Rains PDX shop in the most conspicuous way possible — with a large note on the store’s front door.

“Rains PDX was a locally-owned small business. But, due to the constant, and unrelenting, criminal behavior, coupled with escalating safety issues for our employees, we have decided to permanently close,” the note reads.

Our city is in peril. Small businesses (and large) cannot sustain doing business, in our city’s current state. We have no protection, or recourse, against the criminal behavior that goes unpunished. Do not be fooled into thinking that insurance companies cover losses. We have sustained 15 break-ins… We have not received any financial reimbursement since the 3rd,” it continues.

The note concludes, “Portland has always been known for its thriving and abundant local, independently owned, small businesses. If small businesses are forced out, then our city will have lost a lot of what makes it a unique and desirable place to live. Please do your part to support small businesses, this holiday season, and beyond. Please be vigilant in voting to make our city safe again.”

The article notes that a local coffeehouse that tried to host a ‘coffee with a cop’ was smashed up & sprayed w/paint everywhere by 6 masked assailants using hammers & crowbars. #Antifa then celebrated the attack on social media.

However, there is hope. The article notes:

Dovetailing back to Landolfo’s note, take heed of how she urged people to “be vigilant in voting to make our city safe again.”

To their credit, some Portland residents have been doing exactly that. Indeed, during the midterm elections earlier this month, they ousted the city’s anti-police, pro-criminal commissioner, Jo Ann Hardesty:

…According to The Oregonian, she lost specifically to political newcomer Rene Gonzalez, a pro-police candidate who wants to re-fund the cops.

The voters are the people who can make a difference locally which will eventually make a difference nationally.

It is well to remember the words of Tip O’Neill–“All Politics is Local.”

 

 

The Revolution President Trump Created

On July 4th, The American Thinker posted an article about the success of the Trump Presidency vs. the Reagan Presidency. It you are old enough, you will remember that the press hated President Reagan almost as much as they hated President Trump. But those were different times.

In a June 2017 article Todd Starnes notes:

A beautiful story of our true nature exemplified in the context of the political world, comes from the relationship between Republican president Ronald Reagan and Democrat Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill. Polar opposites politically–yet not allowing that to define their relationship. One time Reagan confronted O’Neill about some nasty things said in the newspaper, and O’Neil replied with: “That’s just politics, after 6 o’clock we’re buddies–we’re friends.” And that’s exactly what they were–frequently going out after work and simply having a beer together, and after Ronald Reagan was shot, the first person to come and visit him was Tip O’Neill. Reagan took it, that when things would get a little heated in some of their meetings, he would visibly set his watch to 6 o’clock, as a frolicsome reminder of their true identity in friendship.

Can you imagine a friendship between President Trump and Chuck Schumer or Nancy Pelosi? I don’t think the responsibility for that lack of friendship falls totally on President Trump.

The article at The American Thinker notes a few significant positive changes to our politics under President Trump:

Before Trump, most Republican politicians saw lying to their base — or at least to a certain part of their base — as a necessary and proper part of their job.  Consider, for instance, this representative quote from Mac Stipanovich, chief of staff to Bob Martinez, the moderate Florida governor who later served in the first Bush administration:

There was always an element of the Republican Party that was bats— crazy. They had lots of different names — they were John Birchers, they were ‘movement conservatives,’ they were the religious right. And we did what every other Republican candidate did: we exploited them. We got them to the polls. We talked about abortion. We promised — and we did nothing. They could grumble, but their choices were limited.

The tawdry history of how the pre-Trump Republican Party has used and discarded the religious right — especially the pro-life movement — is rather long.  Even so, I think it’s important for conservatives to know it, so I will do my best to summarize it.

The article notes:

By the time that Donald Trump took office, only two pro-life justices remained: Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.  Because Trump got only three vacancies, he needed to fill all of them with men and women of principle in order for his side to come out on top.

This was a tall order, since no other Republican president had appointed more than one pro-life justice.  And yet Trump pulled it off.

The article concludes:

Trump kept his promise to move the embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, even though the RINOs wailed and screeched. Trump also tried to keep his promise to build the border wall, but on that issue, his efforts sadly came up short, because he needed Congress to pass legislation that even most Republicans really, really didn’t want passed.

Fortunately, on judicial nominations, Trump had more freedom of action, and with the help of Mitch McConnel and the Federalist Society, he chose three pro-life judges in a row — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett.

So remember that the next time you hear anybody talking about how they wish we could all return to a time before Trumpistry made its mark on America. Remember that it is because of Donald Trump, and his unique level of respect for his base, that each state now has the right, if it so chooses, to enact laws protecting a baby’s right to life.

I will be voting for President Trump in the Republican primary if he runs. I will also be voting for him in the general election if he runs. The positive impact he had on the country is often overlooked by those who support the swamp.