This is the first CommonSense published solely to its followers.  I am not “advertising” it on Facebook because I would expect to be shouted down.  I find very little good purpose in that social medium, particularly when trying to quietly state my political opinions.  On Facebook it appears that when the shooting starts, the persecuting begins. This column may very well be available only to those who wish to read it in the future.  We’ll see how it goes.  As far as Facebook is concerned, I am thinking I don’t need the headache.

From a human side, I’m not a fan of Donald Trump.  He is boorish and self-aggrandizing.  Joe Biden doesn’t appear boorish; he simply doesn’t appear.  Trump doesn’t speak or communicate well unless somebody else writes the script. Biden can’t seem to speak and hold his train of thought. Liberal reporters are able to bait Trump easily, and the President always takes the bait.  Biden merely replies that 150 million people have been killed by guns since 2007, while the total population of our country is only 328 million people.  Trump stands in front of a church with a Bible in his hand, when most of us think he hasn’t read much of it.  But is he a monster?  I don’t think so.

We’ve had outstandingly boorish Presidents before.  You may not remember them.  John Adams had a reputation for razor-sharp put-downs at the expense of his allies and rivals alike.  James Monroe had a fiery temper and once chased Treasury Secretary William Crawford from his office, brandishing a pair of hot fireplace tongs.  The opponents of Andrew Jackson called him a “jackass,” resulting in the donkey as the Democratic symbol. Thomas Jefferson referred to Jackson as “one of the most unfit men I know of” to serve as president of the United States. Jackson taught his pet parrot to swear.  It did so, at his funeral.  John Tyler is usually ranked among the worst. He used ten unpopular vetoes to block his own party. Most of his Cabinet resigned in protest, and eventually they all quit.  And that’s not to mention his drinking.  Andrew Johnson, who also liked a drink or two, was despised for his arrogance.  He was called “a self-made man, distressingly proud of his maker.”  The New Republic wrote of Theodore Roosevelt: “ [He] spent much of his life behaving like a bully, drunk on his own self-regard…Roosevelt’s reputation for boyishness arose from…his ceaseless action, his snap decisions, his adolescent bellicosity, his refusal to consider intellectual or ethical complexity, his confusion of physical with moral courage, and his exaggerated self-esteem when confronted by actual or imagined insults.”  Lyndon Johnson was well known for a rude and overbearing personality.  The list of ungentlemanly Presidents goes on and on.  Some of them turned out all right.  This is a very long way of saying we have seen it before and survived.

Someone far wiser than me once said “Don’t judge the words.  Judge the behavior.” Let’s do that, disregarding the Covid-19 crisis, since the economy seems poised to return better than ever. 

• Donald Trump’s administration is responsible for almost 4 million jobs created since the election.
• More Americans were employed than ever recorded before in our history.
• 400,000 manufacturing jobs have been created since Trump’s election, growing at the fastest rate in more than three decades. 
• New unemployment claims hit a 49-year low. 
• African-American unemployment achieved the lowest rate ever recorded. 
• Hispanic-American unemployment recorded is at the lowest rate in history. 
• Female unemployment reached the lowest rate in 65 years (and that was when Rosie The Riveter and her female compatriots went to work in World War II). 
• Trump’s administration records the lowest unemployment rate ever recorded for Americans without a high school diploma. 
• He signed the biggest package of tax cuts and reforms in history.
• After tax cuts, over $300 billion poured back in to the U.S. 
• Thanks to Trump’s tax bill, small businesses will have the lowest top marginal tax rate in more than 80 years. 
• A record number of regulations have been eliminated.
• The Obamacare individual mandate penalty is gone.
• He withdrew the U.S. from the job-killing Paris Climate Accord. 
• He secured a record $700 billion in military funding.
• He withdrew from the idiotic, one-sided Iran Deal. 
• He moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. 
• He protected Americans from terrorists with the Travel Ban, upheld by the Supreme Court. 
• He concluded an historic U.S.-Mexico Trade Deal to replace NAFTA. 
• He reached a breakthrough agreement with the E.U. to increase U.S. exports. 
• He Imposed tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum to protect our national security. 
• He imposed tariffs on China in response to their forced technology transfer, intellectual property theft, and chronically abusive trade practices. 
• Net exports were on track to increase by $59 billion. 
• He has begun building The Wall.

This is far from a complete list.  If Donald Trump were our employee (and he is), we would be hard pressed to fire him as a slacker.

It seems obvious that Trump detractors will do or support anything that will remove him from office.  I expect those detractors have made plans.  The Epoch Times  reports that the Department of Justice has evidence that the far-left extremist organization Antifa and other similar groups have been behind the recent riots in order to fuel their own violent agenda.  Police departments in several states have warned of materials being purposefully planted in certain locations so as to fuel the rioting. Bricks, incendiary materials and accelerants (that’s a Molotov cocktail) have been found hidden, ready for use.  Unknown individuals, wearing dark combat gear have been reported in the crowds, communicating with others and giving directions.  These are not peaceful protesters.  They were organized and ready.  They don’t care too much about the reprehensible death of George Floyd.  The clear evidence of riot preparations and directions during the rioting should strongly suggest that plans were in readiness prior to Floyd’s death.  Something smells fishy. His wrongful death appears not to be the reason for rioting, but rather the excuse for it.

Floyd was not the model citizen who had “turned his life around” and who is being made a martyr by the misinformed.  He was a career criminal.  He was high on Fentanyl and methamphetamine, trying to pass a counterfeit bill when accosted by police.   A video clearly shows him handcuffed, sitting against a wall and secretly dropping a packet of white powder behind his back when police weren’t looking. While the left screams of intentional murder, It is not clear if the policeman intended to kill him.  The video makes policeman Derek Chauvin appear to be showing off.  Any evidence of an intentional murder is, at the most, unclear. Maybe we should let the courts decide.

It appears that George Floyd was no hero and Derek Chauvin no saint.  Should justice be served? Certainly. Did Floyd deserve to die?  Certainly not. The left now agitates to “Defund The Police.”  That is tantamount to sinking an ocean liner because one is mistreated by a crew member.  Yet it seems clear that this incident involved a career criminal and an idiotic cop.

During this President’s term, we have seen outlandish charges leveled by liberals and the press on every single day.  The Senate Judiciary hearings for Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh were an embarrassment and a complete disregard for our legal and time-honored presumption of innocence.  Trump’s impeachment proceeding was a shameful travesty.  The pandemic of Covid-19 unleashed accusations of poor leadership.  And now rioting, which seems directed at businesses in an attempt to curtail the resurgence of the economy.  Do you see a pattern in all of this?

Those of us who have watched elections down through the decades are familiar with what is called an October Surprise.  The disloyal opposition has managed several of them in the past four years.  Only God knows what October will bring.