Cagle World

Making Sense by Michael Reagan

California’s crazy “jungle” primary elections came to a blessed end on Tuesday.

I lost count, but I think there were 32 candidates running for U.S. Senate and 27 for governor.

In my troubled blue state’s goofy primary system, the top two vote-getters in any given race – even if they are both Democrats or Socialists – get to face each other in the fall general election.

Everyone east of the Sierra Nevada has heard by now that Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom, the ex-San Francisco mayor and 2020 Democratic presidential wannabe, won the most votes in the governor’s contest.

But the big news – the good news – is that Republican multimillionaire businessman John Cox came in second.

Cox won easily despite spending little money and getting almost zero major media attention other than from Fox News.

Though Cox was endorsed by President Trump, about the only time his name was mentioned in the local media was when Newsom attacked him in one of his TV ads.

My son Cameron, a stay-at-home dad with two young kids, sent me a text that summed up what was glaringly missing in the primary race.

“Where is the governor that’s running to lower taxes?

“Where’s the governor that’s running to lower the cost of health care? To lower gasoline prices. Or to make our communities safer or our schools better?

“Everything is emotional,” he wrote. “If you’re an immigrant, this person loves you. If you’re a woman, this person loves you. Is the next governor just going to give away free hugs?

“What could a governor that loves women possibly do to make women better than they already are? Are women oppressed? I’m so confused.”

My son is one of California’s forgotten voters who are ready to revolt.

Millions of them are trying to make ends meet in a place where Democrats in Sacramento have produced the country’s highest income tax rate (13.3 percent), made new houses too expensive for the middle class to afford and turned what used to be the country’s best school system into one of the worst.

No wonder nearly half the people of San Francisco said recently they want to move to another state.

My son wanted to hear candidates for governor address problems that concerned him and his neighbors in the San Fernando Valley – high taxes, criminal gangs, broken schools, spreading homeless camps, a reservoir for Los Angeles.

But Cox and his conservative message were virtually invisible. And every Democrat campaign ad for state and local offices was running against Donald Trump.

“If you want open borders, vote for me and I’ll protect you from Donald Trump.”

In its coverage of the primary results, the New York Times casually said that “Mr. Newsom should coast to victory in November in a state as blue as California.”

That’s the usual conventional wisdom in the liberal media, but I think Cox has a good shot at winning. He got a lot of votes on Tuesday. About 1.1 million to Newsom’s 1.35 million.

This will be our best chance in a long time to elect a Republican governor.

When Cox called me yesterday to thank me for supporting him, I told him there was only one ad I thought he should run in the fall:

“If you like $5-a-gallon gas, if you like sanctuary cities, if you like illegals pouring across the border, if you want four more years of the progressive tax-and-spend policies that have destroyed what used to be known as ‘The great state of California,’ vote Gavin Newsom. You’ll be sorry.”

–

Copyright 2018 Michael Reagan. Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan, a political consultant, and the author of “The New Reagan Revolution” (St. Martin’s Press). He is the founder of the email service reagan.com and president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Visit his websites at www.reagan.com and www.michaelereagan.com. Send comments to [email protected]. Follow @reaganworld on Twitter.

Mike’s column is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For info on using columns contact Sales at [email protected].

I’m burned out on Trump TV.

I don’t need to hear any more of his speeches or read one of his tweets.

I don’t want to watch every little thing President Trump does or says deciphered, misconstrued, attacked, defended, debated or analyzed on my TV every night by his many enemies and few friends.

To try to get some actual news Thursday morning I turned over to the Fox Business Network to watch Stuart Varney and the gang.

FBN covers real stuff and talks to real reporters about the ups and downs of stocks, the impact of President Trump’s trade deals on the economy and stories about the accelerating death spiral of the once-mighty Sears – the Walmart/Amazon of the 1900s.

But even on FBN I couldn’t escape Hurricane Trump, that permanent category 5 media storm that blows away or crowds out the important national and global news of every day.

The big Trump-related story of the morning was the continuing fallout over Roseanne Barr’s racist tweet about former Barrack Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett’s looks.

The tweet caused ABC to instantly cancel her highly rated “Roseanne” sitcom and led Robert Iger, the boss of parent company Disney, to call Jarrett right away to apologize.

FBN’s focus on Roseanne was a perfect example of how low the mainstream media have fallen when it comes to practicing real and important journalism.

She topped the news on virtually every channel, butthe big story of the day should have been President Trump signing the “Right to Try” bill, which finally gives terminally ill patients the federal okay to use experimental medications that have not yet been fully approved by the FDA.

Barr’s tweet was also the latest example of the double standard that permeates the liberal mainstream media’s “news” coverage of President Trump.

Barr, who made herself a juicy target for liberals by proudly calling herself a Trump supporter, was immediately canned and shamed by the leftwing media industrial complex.

Keith Olbermann, Joy Reid, Alec Baldwin, Bill Maher, Don Lemon and “Full Frontal” host Samantha Bee – all card-carrying Trump haters – have said vile, crude and crazy things about Trump and his family.

They did so with little or no harm to their careers.

It’s safe for a liberal celebrity to call Trump a racist or a Nazi, as Olbermann did, or to call Ivanka Trump “a feckless c-,” as Bee did in her monologue Wednesday.

They’ll usually get applauded, defended or given every benefit of the doubt when they pull a Roseanne. They almost never have to apologize.

For example, Joy Reid’s homophobic blogs from 10 years ago have been glossed over or excused, and this week she and former riot-starter Al Sharpton were co-hosting a town meeting on racism at MSNBC.

Christians, Sarah Palin and conservatives are fair game for nasty name calling and low blows in the liberal media.

But if you say anything about a Democrat or a progressive, especially if it has any racial connotations, you’ll be a goner overnight like Roseanne.

Her biggest mistake was openly supporting Trump. That made her a marked celebrity.

She had a history of dumb and politically incorrect tweets, and she didn’t disappoint the liberals.

What she tweeted about Jarrett was wrong, not funny – and plain stupid. But if she deserved to be sacked for what she said, then so do Olbermann, Reid and a bunch of other liberals.

But Olbermann, a sportscaster whose nasty Twitter tantrums about Trump would embarrass a three-year-old, was recently rehired for about the 12th time by Disney’s failing ESPN sports network.

Bee apologized Thursday for “crossing a line.” TBS also apologized.

That’s all they’ll have to do to amend for their sins.

Bee gets a few points for saying she was sorry, but the liberal comedian was never in danger of losing her late-night job.

She knows the new rules of political trash talk – it’s not what you say, it’s who you say it against.

–

Copyright 2018 Michael Reagan. Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan, a political consultant, and the author of “The New Reagan Revolution” (St. Martin’s Press). He is the founder of the email service reagan.com and president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Visit his websites at www.reagan.com and www.michaelereagan.com. Send comments to [email protected]. Follow @reaganworld on Twitter.

Mike’s column is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For info on using columns contact Sales at [email protected].

Don’t sweat North Korea.

Don’t sweat the postponement of the Singapore Summit.

My bet is that it’s just one of many bumps, blips and stumbles that will happen before the Trump administration and that evil dictatorship agree to a historic deal.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump continues to get lots of positive things done in Washington.

This week he signed a bipartisan fix for the badly flawed Dodd-Frank financial reform act that helps small and regional banks deal with rules designed for Big Banks.

He also signed a smaller bill many say has been needed for a long time – “The Right to Try Bill,” which gives terminally ill patients the right to seek experimental drug treatments before they achieve final FDA approval.

By almost any measure, and despite virtually no help from Democrats and the biased mainstream liberal media, President Trump’s doing pretty well at home and abroad.

His tax cuts are still giving millions of middle-class people fatter paychecks, unemployment is at record low levels for blacks and Latinos, the Trump stock market is still up and the economy is getting stronger and healthier all the time.

Meanwhile, look at what the Pelosi-Clinton Democrats are doing.

They’re counting on winning the House of Representatives in the fall.

And what’s their big selling point to voters, the single-most important issue they think will inflame the masses, elect Democrats and return the Party of Hillary to power in Washington?

“Elect me. I promise to impeach President Trump.”

Oh, as a special bonus, if Nancy Pelosi returns as their speaker, she promises she’ll immediately roll back those crummy Trump income tax cuts.

A rational American voter might ask, “What exactly has President Trump done to deserve impeachment?”

“We don’t like him” isn’t anywhere in the Constitution.

Neither is “We don’t like the way he tweets or runs the White House.”

We all know the real reason Democrats want to impeach Donald Trump – he beat Hillary the Great and to do that he must have cheated.

Democrats can never believe it when they are beaten fair and square by a Republican presidential candidate.

They think my father cheated in 1980, George W. Bush cheated in 2000 and Donald Trump cheated in 2016.

The Impeachment Democrats better watch it.

If they take the House and try to impeach Trump on frivolous grounds, they won’t just make a mockery of the Constitution. They’ll also start a bad precedent that eventually will come back to bite them in the butt.

The next time their guy gets elected president and Republicans get control of the House, their guy will get impeached for something silly like golfing too much or smoking cigars in the Oval Office.

The November elections are going to be big trouble for the cocky Democrats, who still think Trump or his staff colluded with the Russians in 2016 to steal the election.

Democrats are already running “I hate Trump” campaigns around the USA.

But while Hillary Clinton is running around making excuses, wearing a Russian hat on stage and making dumb jokes, President Trump’s poll numbers are inching up and the generic Republican-Democrat ballots are even in the polls.

As usual, Democrats have 90 percent of the media on their side.

But Republicans own all the important issues ,’ lower taxes, better economy, more jobs, plus possible breakthroughs with the despots who run Iran and North Korea.

All the Democrats have in 2018 is,”We’re going to impeach Donald Trump. Then we’ll raise your taxes.”

They’ll look like fools if they run on that platform – they already do.

–

Copyright 2018 Michael Reagan. Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan, a political consultant, and the author of “The New Reagan Revolution” (St. Martin’s Press). He is the founder of the email service reagan.com and president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Visit his websites at www.reagan.com and www.michaelereagan.com. Send comments to [email protected]. Follow @reaganworld on Twitter.

Mike’s column is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For info on using columns contact Sales at [email protected].

Donald Trump’s many enemies are becoming more and more frustrated.

A year into Robert Mueller’s great Russian fishing expedition, the president they desperately want to impeach is still in office.

The liberal media and Democrats have spent a year beating Mr. Trump over the head with whatever they or Mueller’s lawyers could find, but the president’s popularity has only grown and he keeps winning.

The anti-Trumpers’ desperate hatred was exposed this week when North Korea started making noises that it might cancel the summit with the United States.

You remember North Korea?

For decades American presidents and statesmen have been trying to get it to stop its nuclear missile program and behave like a civilized nation inside and outside its barbed wire fences.

Our polite diplomatic efforts to tame the communist dictatorship produced a series of false hopes and flops. Nothing improved.

In fact, thanks to a series of bad deals made in the Clinton and Obama years, North Korea only got more brazen and its military more frightening.

But then along came President Trump. His “Not Made in D.C.” brand of tough diplomacy created a sudden and seemingly miraculous breakthrough.

We don’t know yet if Trump will resolve the North Korean problem, but we know what the left and their pals in the liberal media would like to see – another failure.

They hate President Trump so much they were almost gleeful this week when they heard North Korea may renege on the summit meeting.

They’d be happy to see North Korea cancel because they don’t want Trump ever to succeed with anything at home or overseas.

For them, hating President Trump trumps putting America first.

It’s a similar story with the Trump administration moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.

For decades Democrat and Republican presidents and congressional candidates have been promising to do it – during elections, that is, when they knew it’d get them votes and campaign contributions.

Once they were elected, of course, nothing happened. It was all talk.

It was just a cynical and cheap campaign slogan – like the Republicans’ promises to repeal and replace Obamacare.

But in 2016 when candidate Trump promised he’d put the embassy in Jerusalem, he wasn’t lying.

President Trump kept his promise this week. And how did the left and the liberal establishment media react?

They screamed bloody murder that it was a dangerous and reckless thing to do that will only create violence in Gaza and hurt the chances for peace in the Middle East.

You remember how peaceful things were in Gaza before President Trump?

You remember how much peace there was in the Middle East until he came along to blow things up with his tweets?

Next thing you know, if it’s not already true, the Trump-hate media will be rooting for the Hamas protestors in Gaza who are being killed by Israeli soldiers.

Donald Trump is president of the United States. He doesn’t do things at home or abroad the way they were done in past, to say the least.

Sometimes the Trump Way doesn’t work. But sometimes you have to break the rules, buck the experts or kick some butt to get the job done right.

My father did all of those things to get Mikhail Gorbachev to come to the table during the Cold War.

He built up the U.S. military. He blew up a Soviet natural gas pipeline.

He called the USSR “The Evil Empire,” when everyone around him told him it wouldn’t be polite to do.

No matter what good things President Trump does, as long as he has the keys to the Oval Office, he will be hated by the left and run-down in the mainstream liberal media.

You may not like his methods or his personality. You may think he’s a complete “blank.”

But he’s a “blank” who’s doing in North Korea and Israel some important things that a lot of Democrat and Republican politicians promised but never had the guts to do.

–

Copyright 2018 Michael Reagan. Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan, a political consultant, and the author of “The New Reagan Revolution” (St. Martin’s Press). He is the founder of the email service reagan.com and president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Visit his websites at www.reagan.com and www.michaelereagan.com. Send comments to [email protected]. Follow @reaganworld on Twitter.

Mike’s column is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For info on using columns contact Sales at [email protected].

Making Sense by Michael Reagan

So Donald Trump has a date with Kim Jong Un in Singapore on June 12.

Good deal – so far.

As long as the president doesn’t get arrested for chewing gum or hanged for spitting on the sidewalk, his meet-up with North Korea’s “Rocket Man” in that spotless city might actually become a historic summit.

Singapore 2018 might even become one of Trump’s legacies, though I suspect at this point he’s not as fixated on legacy building as most presidents.

He’s more focused on making a deal with a nasty communist regime that no previous president has been able to make.

We’ll know soon enough if Singapore is for show or for real.

Meanwhile, I hope when Mr. Trump sits down to negotiate with Kim Jong Un he’ll remember what happened when Ronald Reagan went to Reykjavik in October of 1986 to meet Mikhail Gorbachev.

My father’s meeting in Iceland with the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was a “session” and not an official summit, but it was a huge, huge geopolitical deal at the time.

The hope was for the two superpowers to discuss ways to put limits on strategic nuclear weapons arsenals and to come up with a sweeping arms-control agreement that would bring about the major mothballing of their nukes and missiles.

I remember when my father’s administration was putting the Reykjavik trip together. It was his second meeting Gorbachev, and hopes were sky high for a historic agreement that would end the scariest part of the Cold War.

Everyone in the administration – including Nancy – was excited because they thought Reykjavik was going to be Ronald Reagan’s greatest legacy.

Everyone was pushing him – relentlessly – to make a deal with Gorbachev. Almost any deal.

But when Mr. Gorbachev said he wouldn’t sign the document unless the United States gave up the Strategic Defense Initiative – the proposed “Star Wars” ballistic missile defense system – my father said “Nyet.”

He got up and walked away from the table.

Everyone was shocked and concerned by what my father did, but the rest was history. The Soviet Union soon went bust. The Berlin Wall came down. The Cold War was over.

Saying no to the USSR when it wanted the United States to give up something was not an audible my father called on the spot. It was something he had been hoping to do for a long time.

I remember in 1976 at the Republican National Convention when he lost the nomination. I walked over to his hotel room and asked him, “Why in world would you even want to run for president?”

“Michael,” he said, “for too long I’ve watched presidents of the United States meet with Secretary Generals of the Soviet Union.

“Every time we sit sit down with them they’re asking us to give up something to get along with them.

“I want to be the first president who says ‘Nyet.’ That’s the reason I wanted to run for president.”

In order for President Trump’s meeting on June 12 to be a success, and he certainly has it in him to make it one, he also has to be willing to walk away.

You can’t make a deal just because you’re thinking it’s going to be good for your legacy.

Your legacy might be when you stand up and walk away from a bad deal.

The only way you’ll ever win real victories against the people who run hellholes like the USSR, North Korea and Iran is if you’re willing to walk – and they know it.

Anyone can make a bad deal – look at the one President Obama made with Iran.

So my suggestion to the president is, “Don’t make a deal with North Korea just to make a deal. Sometimes the best deal is to walk away.”

And anyway, Mr. Trump, with three American prisoners safely back home from North Korea, you’ve already got a win.

–

Copyright 2018 Michael Reagan. Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan, a political consultant, and the author of “The New Reagan Revolution” (St. Martin’s Press). He is the founder of the email service reagan.com and president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Visit his websites at www.reagan.com and www.michaelereagan.com. Send comments to [email protected]. Follow @reaganworld on Twitter.

Mike’s column is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For info on using columns contact Sales at [email protected].

Making Sense by Michael Reagan

The Trump Haters hate on and on and…

The deranged hatred of Donald Trump by the left and the media is so strong it is never going to stop.

If they had the chance, I actually think the Democrats would put a crown of thorns on Trump’s head, make him carry his own cross and send him to be crucified.

On national TV.

With Rachel Maddow, Chuck Todd and Jimmy Kimmel doing the play-by-play.

Of course, if the Democrat mob was given the choice between letting Barabbas the murderer or Trump the president go free, there’d be no doubt who they’d choose.

Crucify Him! Crucify Him!

He’d not one of us! He’s not a career politician!

Crucify him! He’s the one who slayed St. Hillary!

A literal crucifixion of the president isn’t too likely, I guess, no matter how hard the media prayed.

In the media it’s all Bad-Trump-All-the-Time.

The entertainment and journalism arms of the major mainstream media, except for Fox, have essentially become the alt-left.

They are almost as hysterical, unfair, unbalanced, and hateful as the conspiracy-minded alt-right media were under Obama.

But the alt-right was tiny. It was out on the fringe.

It was obsessed with crazy things like Obama’s birthplace, his radical leftwing friends and his serial apologizing for America.

The “respectable” alt-left mainstream anti-Trump media is the political equivalent of the anti-Obama alt-right.

They are just as hysterical, biased and obsessed with finding anything in Trump’s past or present that might bring him down.

No outlandish conspiracy theory, no half-assed accusation of lawbreaking by a Democrat, no leaked uncorroborated information by an anonymous source is too small for our biased journalists to beat us to death with on the front page.

If the liberal media can’t prove President Trump’s done anything seriously wrong, which is the case so far, they attack or smear any celebrity, woman or black person who supports him or works for his administration.

Roseanne Barr got her media drubbing for having the nerve to stand up for Trump last month.

Now it’s Kanye West’s turn to be trashed for daring to leave the Democrat Party plantation.

He’s been misinterpreted and disowned for standing up for Trump, for urging modern blacks not to be held back by a slave mentality and for quoting the great black conservative economist and author, Thomas Sowell.

This week one of the top thugs in the Crips publicly urged gang members to “mess” up Kanye for holding his politically incorrect opinions.

The mainstream media reaction to that threat on Kanye’s life so far?

Crickets.

Meanwhile, in news that matters, North Korea is talking denuclearization, making peace with South Korea after 70 years and letting three American prisoners go free as a good gesture.

At home in Trump America unemployment rates for blacks, Latinos and women are down.

Those accomplishments aren’t bigger news stories than porn “performer” Stormy Daniels’ attorney’s 37th appearance on CNN?

Not if Donald Trump had anything to do with them.

The liberal media and the Washington-New York-Hollywood Axis of Evil they serve won’t let good news about Trump be heard because they hate him too much.

He broke the political system they loved – the racket that said only career politicians can run for office, not regular human beings.

The same people who hate Trump hated my dad for many of the same reasons.

He wasn’t one of them. He was a non-politician. He was going to start World War III. He was an empty suit.

The Democrats and the MSM hated Ronald Reagan until it was no longer politically correct to hate him – because he died.

Then they said they loved him.

The people who hate President Trump will never love him, alive or crucified.

They’ll always choose Barabbas.

–

Copyright 2018 Michael Reagan. Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan, a political consultant, and the author of “The New Reagan Revolution” (St. Martin’s Press). He is the founder of the email service reagan.com and president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Visit his websites at www.reagan.com and www.michaelereagan.com. Send comments to [email protected]. Follow @reaganworld on Twitter.

Mike’s column is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For info on using columns contact Sales at [email protected].

Making Sense by Michael Reagan

The Trump Haters in Washington are desperate.

They can t find a way to bring down the president, so they re carpet bombing everyone around him.

Their latest victim is Ronny Jackson – the White House doctor the president chose to become the new secretary of Veterans Affairs.

Dr. Jackson – a Navy rear admiral – has decided not to pursue the job.

Some people thought he didn t have the experience to run the VA, which last I saw took care of 9 million vets with almost 400,000​ bureaucrats.

But his administrative skills weren t what sunk him​. It was the slimy attack on his moral ​​character by Trump-hating Democrats and their pals in the liberal media.

Until about half an hour ago everyone loved the good doctor.

He was a great guy, a good man. He had worked for both President Obama and President George W. Bush.

Then came the unsubstantiated and anonymous attacks. Suddenly, Dr. Jackson was Public Enemy Number One.

He was basically ​accused in the media ​of being a drug dealer, ​an alcoholic and, worst of all these days, being a boss who created a toxic workplace environment.

Rather than be trashed in public, he withdrew his name.

The attack on Dr. Jackson’s morals​ reminds me of the cheap remark made about President Trump by James Comey, the former FBI director, admitted leaker and professional truth-stretcher.

​Comey ​has famously said he doesn t think Donald Trump has the moral qualifications to be president.

During his triumphant book tour I ve been waiting for one of Comey s ​friendly ​interviewers to ask if he thought Hillary was morally qualified to be president in 2016.

Or if he thought lying about Benghazi, erasing emails, destroying hard drives, attacking the women who accused her husband of rape, etc., etc., did not ​disqualify her?

And what about her husband Bill, who would have been her co-president?

Did Mr. Comey think Bill ​has​ the moral qualifications to be trusted with the keys to the White House again – and left alone with the interns?

While we’re asking, ​​does ​Comey think JFK was morally qualified in 1960. Or ​do ​serial philandering ​and adultery not ​count​?​

JFK was not morally qualified to be Prez ​- even by today s standards.

But he stared down the Soviets in Cuba, pushed for lower taxes and built a strong military.

​So ​​d​o I really care who ​Jack ​was diddling in his spare time? Not really.

Comey s remark about Donald Trump s morals was not just another of his cheap shots. It was also a dumb ​thing to say.

​J​immy Carter was probably the most morally qualified human on the planet ever to be president.

​What did he accomplish?

​He gave Iran to the mullahs and he gave the rest of us gas lines, a dead economy and a sky-high Misery Index (the rate of inflation plus the rate of unemployment).

Carter proved there’s no connection between a president s good or bad private morals and his ability to be a good or bad president.

​Trump’s doing the same thing.

Despite his less-than-saintly morals and his other faults, so far he’s given us tax cuts, a strong economy and historically low black and Latino unemployment rates.

Plus he looks like he’s on the verge of solving the North Korean nukes problem after three decades.

​Of course it won’t matter what President Trump accomplishes.

Democrats and the liberal media will never give him credit for anything.

They hate him more than ever, but now they’re beginning to realize they can’t bring him down for collusion or anything else.

That’s why they’ve begun attacking the moral qualifications of people who want to work for President Trump like Dr. Jackson.

More than 200 of Trump’s appointments are being held up. Good luck to them if they’ve ever had a speeding ticket.

The way things are going now, Trump’s enemies would not support Jesus Christ for secretary of anything because he was pro-life, was seen talking to prostitutes and turned water into wine without a permit.

–

Copyright 2018 Michael Reagan. Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan, a political consultant, and the author of “The New Reagan Revolution” (St. Martin’s Press). He is the founder of the email service reagan.com and president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Visit his websites at www.reagan.com and www.michaelereagan.com. Send comments to [email protected]. Follow @reaganworld on Twitter.

Mike’s column is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For info on using columns contact Sales at [email protected].

Making Sense by Michael Reagan

You don’t want to live in my state.

Sure, it’s beautiful. The weather is great.

And most people who live here are nice, good, successful, talented, smart – except when it comes to politics and voting.

That’s when a majority of Californians fall somewhere between crazy and suicidal.

For several decades the liberal Democrats that my fellow Californians keep electing to state and local offices have done their best to turn our paradise into Hell for conservatives.

Everyone knows about our criminally high taxes, idiotic environmental regulations, fiscal irresponsibility, unsolvable homeless problem and our Welcome Wagon policy toward illegal immigrants.

Lately we’ve created sanctuary cities and become a sanctuary state.

You’d think it couldn’t get worse out here on the Left Coast.

But the stupidity of our liberal politicians is infinite, as the supervisors of Los Angeles County proved earlier this month when they approved a $550,000 pilot program to deal with the local homeless crisis.

Proposing a solution that could only have been dreamed up in La-La Land, the county wants to pay homeowners like me to let homeless people live in our backyards.

Not in colorful tents and sleeping bags.In cozy new tiny houses or refurbished garden sheds and converted garages.

I think I’ll pass on the idea, without trying to make a NIMBY joke.

But I’m sure all of my goodhearted, Hillary-loving, BMW-driving neighbors will be signing up to make the county’s pilot program a big success.

Keeping a homeless person in your backyard like a pet is the kind of solution you get from government when you live in a one-party state run by Democrats.

Unfortunately, because of a dumb constitutional amendment approved by 53.7 percent of our voters in 2010, the future of Republicans and conservatives out here looks grim.

Most people east of the Hollywood Sign have never heard of California Proposition 14, a.k.a. the Top-Two Primaries Amendment, and have no idea how much damage it did to our state’s political system.

Prop 14 was an amendment that established a type of primary election in which all of the candidates for a specific statewide office like governor or the U.S. Senate- whether they are Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Communists, etc. — are listed together on the same primary ballot.

The top two vote-getters – even if both are Democrats or Communists – are the only candidates that advance to the general election in the fall.

Though Prop 14 sounds like it was imported from Venezuela or Cuba, it was supported by the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger and big liberal newspapers like the LA Times.

But the major political parties, the ACLU and anyone with half a political brain saw the phony reform for the disaster it has become.

Opponents charged that Prop 14 was designed to limit voter choice, which it was.

They knew it would often result in two candidates from the same party facing off in general elections, which it has.

Given the Democrat Party’s large plurality in California, in the fall that we usually have two Democrats running for U.S. Senator, two Democrats running for governor and two Democrats running for many U.S. House seats or state legislative offices.

The politics of my beautiful state today are rigged and Republicans have become an endangered species.

A Republican’s vote no longer counts. The state GOP doesn’t really exist.

And a conservative candidate for dog catcher has to be a billionaire because she’ll get no money from the Republican National Committee or anyone else.

California’s only hope for a better future is that things will get so bad there’s a huge backlash that produces a political miracle in 2020 like the one that put Donald Trump in the White House.

It’s a long shot, but crazy things can happen in California.

–

Copyright 2018 Michael Reagan. Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan, a political consultant, and the author of “The New Reagan Revolution” (St. Martin’s Press). He is the founder of the email service reagan.com and president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Visit his websites at www.reagan.com and www.michaelereagan.com. Send comments to [email protected]. Follow @reaganworld on Twitter.

Mike’s column is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For info on using columns contact Sales at [email protected].

Making Sense, by Michael Reagan

Plans to build a mosque and Islamic center just 200 meters from the former site of the World Trade Center where 3,000 people died in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks are not merely inappropriate, they are an outrage.

This isn’t about some sort of reconciliation between Muslims and their New York neighbors, it’s the equivalent of plunging a dagger into the very heart of America. If the Muslim community had any sense of compassion for the feelings of their fellow Americans, they’d find someplace else to build their mosque. Instead, they choose a site that forever serves as a reminder of that fatal blow against the American people.

Incredibly, the proposed $100 million development is located at the site of the former Burlington Coat Factory in Lower Manhattan, which closed after the landing gear from one of the 9/11 planes hit the building. It is about 200 meters from World Trade Center, where 3,000 people died in the terrorist attack.

Do the members of the Muslim community have any idea of how the American people feel about the site of that cowardly attack on the World Trade Center buildings? Do they not understand that the site itself stands as an indictment of the perfidy of the 9/11 sneak attack and is the least appropriate site for a Muslim religious complex that will stand as a stark reminder of that attack and the people behind it?

The proposed mosque will be part of what is known as the Cordoba House project, a 13-story Muslim community center planned to include a theater and sports facilities, including a swimming pool.

I agree with former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin who asked “peace-seeking Muslims, to try to understand that a Ground Zero mosque is unnecessary provocation; it stabs hearts.”

That fact failed to impress Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), who is reported to have said “there is controversy and there are parties that have a political agenda and want to intimidate the American people against the mosque project which has not yet begun.” He singled out Republican Congressman Peter King, whose opinion, he said, “should not be considered because his ideas are extreme.

Rep. King, the ranking Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, said he favors an investigation into the funding of a proposed mosque near ground zero and has demanded an investigation into the financing of the center. He wants to know who is really footing the bill for the 100 million dollar project.

“It’s a house of worship, but we are at war with al-Qaida,” King told the AP. “I think the 9/11 families have a right to know where the funding comes from; I think there are significant questions.

“Right at this moment in history, it’s bad form to put it there,” he said. “There are things you are allowed to do, but that aren’t appropriate to do.”

According to Imam Abdul Rauf, the Islamic center would be financed through contributions from Muslims here in the United States, and by donations from various Arab and Islamic countries. He admits that building a Mosque, due to accommodate some 2,000 worshippers, has stirred heated controversy and criticism from families of 9/11 victims.

That’s putting it mildly. Many of the 9/11 victims’ families have voiced strong objections to the proposed mosque. Evelyn Pettigano, whose sister died on 9/11, told the Associated Press: “I’m not prejudiced.it‘s too close to the area where our family members were murdered.”

And said the mother of a New York City firefighter who died as well: “I think it’s despicable, and I think it’s atrocious that anyone would even consider allowing them to build a mosque near the World Trade Center.”

If this project is allowed to continue, Mohamed Atta WINS!!!

That pretty much says it all.

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Mike Reagan, the elder son of the late President Ronald Reagan, is spokesperson for The Reagan PAC (www.thereaganpac.com) and chairman and president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation (www.reaganlegacyfoundation.org). Look for Mike’s books and other information at www.Reagan.com. E-mail comments to [email protected].

©2010 Mike Reagan. If you’re not a paying subscriber to our service, you must contact us to print or Web post this column. Mike’s column is distributed exclusively by: Cagle Cartoons, Inc., newspaper syndicate. For info contact Cari Dawson Bartley. E-mail [email protected], (800) 696-7561.

Making Sense, by Michael Reagan

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden recently told Al Jazeera English that President Obama “wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with the dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science. and math and engineering.” After hearing this statement, my deepest fears about the dangerous priorities being put forth by this administration were confirmed.

Cartoon by Eric Allie - Cagle Cartoons (click to reprint)

Could someone please explain to the hard-working men and women of NASA, or, even more importantly to us as taxpayers who fund the agency, why the leader of that organization is being asked to essentially serve as a diplomat? Why such a foolish edict to a leader who is already facing severe budget cuts at his agency and is being continuously challenged on the viability and affordability of the space mission? Where in NASA’s mission statement does it discuss the role of the agency in making nations “feel good”?

With such an egregious misuse of resources, personnel and priorities, I hardly know where to start.

Now this is not to say that the United States should not engage in efforts to improve the usually rocky relations we share with so many nations in the Middle East. Doing so can build a level of trust and a greater understanding of our diverse cultures. But that is a job for the U.S. State Department, not an agency dedicated to space exploration.

So what does this tell us? First, it reveals an administration that is unable or unwilling to focus its personnel and resources on their respective jobs at hand. This is a time when our federal government should be trying to do more with less through greater efficiency and accountability, not foolish duplication and misdirection of our available assets. Asking an administration that should be focused on travel to Mars to try to bridge the divide between our nation and the Muslim population of the world is not only ignorant, it is a dangerous abuse of the nation’s resources.

Second, this story is also going to fuel the rumors that abound when it comes to the President and affinity for and preferential treatment of the Islamic world — a potentially hazardous approach when considering our own security and that of our key allies, such as Israel.

Right now, Americans want policy approaches that get our economy back on track and put more Americans to work, cut out the massive spending spree in which our government is engaged, and ensure the safety of our national security interests at home and abroad. Asking NASA to step into foreign relations simply does not fit into this package of priorities, and the president will surely pay the price at the polls when his time comes.

America’s space program has led to some of the most dramatic moments in American history. From the first orbit around the earth, the lunar landings, development of an amazing shuttle fleet and even the tragedies that have unfortunately befallen our brave men and women, NASA has pushed the bounds of who we are and who we can be. As an agency and as explorers, NASA has helped shape the America of today. It is not, however, the agency that should be tasked shaping the Middle East of tomorrow.

Mr. President, this is not rocket science.

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Mike Reagan, the elder son of the late President Ronald Reagan, is spokesperson for The Reagan PAC (www.thereaganpac.com) and chairman and president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation (www.reaganlegacyfoundation.org). Look for Mike’s books and other information at www.Reagan.com. E-mail comments to [email protected].

©2010 Mike Reagan. If you’re not a paying subscriber to our service, you must contact us to print or Web post this column. Mike’s column is distributed exclusively by: Cagle Cartoons, Inc., newspaper syndicate. For info contact Cari Dawson Bartley. E-mail [email protected], (800) 696-7561.