Honoring Our Heroes
Today is Veterans Day. The day originally began as Armistice Day to mark the 11:00 AM ceasefire on November 11, 1918, that ended World War I. In 1954 Congress renamed Armistice Day as Veterans Day to honor the veterans of all our wars.
Sadly, we are living in an era of increasing hostility toward America. A false narrative has taken root on our college campuses. We are teaching our children not American history but anti-American history.
We are teaching that our nation is an evil, oppressive force, founded on slavery and genocide. No wonder growing numbers of young Americans do not describe themselves as patriotic.
Increasingly, the values that used to unite us now divide us. Monuments to our founding fathers are under attack. Even the Pledge of Allegiance is protested and denounced as "an instrument of white nationalism."
Of course, our veterans know better. They understand that America is a force for good in the world, that it is worth defending, that it is, as Abraham Lincoln once described it, "the last best hope of Earth."
Please find an opportunity today talk to your children and grandchildren about what happened at Concord Bridge and Gettysburg, on the beaches of Normandy and, more recently, in the deserts of Iraq and in the mountains of Afghanistan.
There is a poem you have likely seen before, but I want to share it with you again, because it summarizes well what we owe our veterans.
It is the veteran, not the preacher, who has given you freedom of religion.
It is the veteran, not the reporter, who has given you freedom of the press.
It is the veteran, not the poet, who has given you freedom of speech.
It is the veteran, not the protester, who has given you freedom to assemble.
It is the veteran, not the lawyer, who has given you the right to a fair trial.
It is the veteran, not the politician, who has given you the right to vote.
It is the veteran, who salutes the Flag, who serves under the Flag, whose coffin is draped by the Flag.
To the millions who have always been there to stop the tyrant, protect the weak and preserve the peace -- we have not forgotten you. A grateful nation thanks God for giving us heroes like you.
And particularly to the men and women who served in Afghanistan and Iraq: You did not fight and sacrifice in vain. You won every battle you fought. You protected our country for 20 years since 9/11, preventing another jihadist attack. You are more worthy than the failed political leadership we are now afflicted with.
The Unknown Soldier
This Veterans Day is also the 100th Anniversary of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery, just a few miles from my office. After the horrible carnage of World War I, France established a memorial to its "unknown dead." It was placed under the Arc de Triumph in Paris. Great Britain did the same, burying one of its "unknown" inside Westminster Abbey in London. Both dedications took place on November 11, 1920.
One year later, the U.S. followed suit. Four bodies of unidentified U.S. military personnel were exhumed from different American military cemeteries in France. U.S. Army Sgt. Edward F. Younger, a highly decorated veteran of the Great War, selected which of the four would be the Unknown Soldier of World War I.
On November 11, 1921, a horse-drawn caisson carried the remains across the Potomac River to Arlington Cemetery where they were interred in the Tomb. All across the country Americans stopped whatever they were doing to observe two minutes of silence.
The back of the Tomb has this inscription, "Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to God."
That is the God of the Bible. The "Creator" that the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence says is the source of our liberty. In these desperate and dangerous times we must hope and pray that our nation will turn back to Him.
Bidenflation Bites
The Labor Department released a shocking report yesterday that sent the stock market tumbling. Inflation surged to it highest level in more than 30 years. Consumer prices soared 6.2% over the past year and 0.9% just in the past month alone!
Joe Biden's "inflation tax" is taking a huge bite out of your paycheck. It has literally wiped out all wage gains for millions of hard-working Americans.
Energy bills – home electricity, natural gas and heating oil – are way up. Electricity prices spiked the most since 2009. Let's see, who was in office then? Oh, that's right – Barack Obama and Joe Biden. And Obama's energy plan was going to cause electricity prices to "necessarily skyrocket." His words, not mine.
Unfortunately, very few Democrats seem to care about skyrocketing inflation. But one who does is Sen. Joe Manchin. He tweeted yesterday, "The threat posed by record inflation to the American people is not 'transitory' and is instead getting worse. . . DC can no longer ignore the economic pain Americans feel every day."
We'll find out soon enough now much Sen. Manchin really cares. It's impossible to imagine how anyone who cares about inflation could support a $4 trillion socialist spending binge on top of the massive spending Biden, Harris, Pelosi and Schumer have already done.
More Radical Nominees
Earlier this week, I explained that many Americans are shocked at how poorly the Biden/Harris Administration is performing. Polling finds that nearly half of Americans say Biden is performing worse than they expected.
But it would be a mistake to think this gang is just a bunch of well-meaning but incompetent bureaucrats. They are radical ideologues doing exactly what radical ideologues mean to do.
For example, I noted how high energy prices aren't just a byproduct of misguided left-wing policies, but actually part of the left's goal to destroy our great American energy industry. Again, don't take my word for it.
The latest example of this insanity comes from Saule Omarova, Joe Biden's nominee to be comptroller of the currency. We've reported on her before. She's a real communist, as in an actual Lenin Scholar who attended Moscow State University in Russia.
During an online forum in February, Omarova was discussing her desire to create a new "National Investment Authority" that could take over and "transition" oil and gas companies to new technologies.
Why would we need a new national bureaucracy with the authority to do that? Well, in Omarova's ideal world, a lot of energy companies "are going to probably go bankrupt in short order, at least we want them to go bankrupt if we want to tackle climate change, right?"
WRONG! The last thing America needs is a "banking czar" trying to bankrupt our vital industries.
And then there's Gigi Sohn, Biden's latest nominee to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Sohn has repeatedly called for government censorship of conservative voices.
She is on the record dismissing conservative allegations of social media censorship as baseless. She said that Fox News should have its license revoked by the FCC because it serves no public good. In October of 2020, she tweeted, "I believe that Fox News has had the most negative impact on our democracy."
Once again, we see that the left isn't interested in civility or fair and balanced debate. It wants to end debate. If I tried to list all the examples, I would go on for pages.
The most recent and most egregious example is when parents tried to speak up at school board meetings out of concern for their children. The left had no interest in hearing their concerns. It tried to shut them up with accusations of "domestic terrorism" and threats of investigation from the FBI.
It goes without saying that every Republican must vote no on the Sohn and Omarova nominations.
Any Democrat senator who claims to be a "moderate" should not vote for these nominees either. Senators like Kelly (AZ), Sinema (AZ), Tester (MT), Hassan (NH), Cortez Matso (NV), Casey (PA) and Manchin (WV) all need to step up.
If these senators represent you, call them now at 202-224-3121. Tell them to oppose the nominations of Gigi Sohn and Saule Omarova.
