Frustration

I understand Brent Bozell's frustration at Donald Trump's being the presumptive nominee of the Republican party ... see: his Open Letter to Conservatives. But desperate times require desperate measures and it appears that most of blue-collar America doesn't agree with Bozell's assessment of the situation. Yes, Trump is too often wrong on style but right on substance and this has turned many voters off (like my wife). Even I have spent a considerable amount of this blog space criticizing Trump's vulgarities. But now, resolving myself to his eventual nomination, I am forced to concentrate on his approach to the real issues of our time.

If Trump were to be elected ...  which I now consider highly likely ... how would he govern? I believe that he would go a long way toward solving our economic malaise through tax and regulation reform. (He is even against the carried interest tax loophole enjoyed by the hedge-fund nabobs,) I also believe he would find ways to fix our immigration and international trade problems ... in a tough but rational way. And I expect that our fiscal debt goblin would be put back in the closet through spending cuts and economic growth. Yet he would still rebuild our defense capabilities and put apprehension back in the minds of many the bad actors in the world.

But how would Trump handle the social issues that conservatives, like Bozell, are so focused on? Here I am not so sanguine. I expect that he will disappoint many righties in how he reforms Obamacare and Common Core ... and his Supreme Court picks may not be the best. (Wouldn't it be great if he used Ted Cruz as an adviser in this process?) And his approach to solving entitlement  reform could well be too tempered by the brickbats being tossed at him by the liberal media.

And the Trump administration probably will have its share of faux and real scandals ... just because his management style has often allowed the fringes of society to have a chair at the table. And he will come out of the White House a lot wealthier than he was when he went in.

Will Trump be another Ronald Reagan? No, but he may be a modern-day Andrew Jackson, also a rough and tumble politician ... and put Old Hickory's picture back on the double sawbuck in the process. And the best part? Lena Dunham, Rosie O'Donnell, Michael Moore, and lots of other goofy glitterati will soon be living north of the 49th parallel.

One Size Fits All

There is one obvious problem with Big-Brother government … and that is that it dosn’t allow for diversity. Gasp! But, but “diversity” is the watch-word of our current generation of Orwellians! How can this be? Well, when control and standards are centralized in Washington, suddenly the wide range of options, that once existed, vanish like all those hundreds of billions of dollars in the 2009 government Stimulus Program. Such failings are beginning to be realized in education with the Common Core strictures and nutrition with Michelle Obama’s childhood obesity program.

Let me here just deal with the current tube-sock approach to school lunches. (I might soon deal with the Common Core program.)  I am certain that Michelle Obama meant well when her heavy-hand landed on the public-school cafeterias throughout America. Liberals applauded another government-sponsored (and funded) program that was going to benefit the health and avoirdupois of our public school children. Just one problem … it’s a complete and costly failure. All across our fruited plain, schools are dropping out of this “free lunch” because it doesn’t suit the needs of so many of their students … see: All the Food That's Fit to Eat.

A perfect case in point is North Tonawanda, New York where this town’s Board of Education has leveled copious criticism on this program. Read the details here: EAG News Item. Basically, this school-board’s salvo centers on the lack of understanding and accommodation in this program for the diversity of the nutritional needs of all their students. For instance, high-school athletes might need three to four times the caloric intake of their more sedentary classmates … yet this program does not permit such “gluttony.” And, I am certain that students in Arizona have different food traditions and preferences from kids in Maine … yet these differences are not understood or allowed under Mrs. O’s attempt to re-make our children after her apparent Platonic ideal.

Please … can’t her precious program understand that one size does not necessarily fit all? Otherwise, we might just take the sane approach … and deep-six it entirely.

All the Food That's Fit to Eat

A nutritionist she ain't. In fact, Michelle Obama, with hips two ax-handles wide, could vie with Hillary Clinton for Mrs. Pear-Shape of 2014. Yet our know-better First Lady and her new National School Lunch Program diet has driven one million students off of school lunch programs in the last two years ... and cost school districts over $1 billion in thrown-away food. And school district after school district are opting to forgo federal food subsidies rather than give their students meals that they won't eat. Even hummus, yogurt and hard-boiled eggs are verboten under Michelle's new guidelines. The second largest school district in Illinois gave these new imposed federal standards short shrift in order to get their students back consuming real food  .. see: EAG News Story.

It would seem to this simple-minded observer that "good nutrition" doesn't amount to (excuse the expression) a hill of beans if it isn't consumed. Unfortunately, Michelle Obama must, like her husband, turn a deaf ear to any critical feedback. It is clearly likely that one-size-fits-all federal food mandates may also cut across the grain in many areas of our country ... where more traditional regional foods have been and are preferred by their students. This program, like Common Core, needs a rethink.