The Center is Not Holding

Do you have the feeling these days that many things, especially the government, aren’t working anymore?

As an example, we sent out Christmas cards in late November. One individual we sent a card to had moved, but the Post Office couldn’t find any forwarding address. They returned the card to us in March of the next year!

No joke. Five months later! My wife has mailed bills weeks in advance but invariably, she gets calls looking for the payment. When she tells the payee the bill was mailed weeks before, invariably they say, “Oh yeah, I know what you are going through. The postal system stinks.”

We know a married couple attempting to refinance their house. But it is being unnecessarily held up. Why? They have an exceptional credit rating, excessive money in the bank, a good steady income and lots and lots of equity in two houses.

The bank supposedly needs an actual copy of the couple’s most recent tax return but the IRS is not being forthcoming. In this case, the liar is unknown. Is it the crime-like IRS, or is the crooked bank deliberately slow rolling the refinance, waiting for the prime to go back up?

Regardless, big banks and big government are both criminal operations.

We notice local roads are repaved, even though they don’t need to be, just so a corrupt politician can pay off a corrupt contractor. And forget the local schools. State prisons are more effectively run than local schools.

They are more akin to prison yards with school colors too interested in teaching the lie of critical race theory that whites in the womb are racist.

Solar is another big-time scheme. Let’s face it, solar panels are a fraud propped up by corrupt politicians and corrupt developers.

And to top it off, they don’t work. First, it is nighttime every 12 hours. Second, it is often cloudy. In the winter, they are covered with snow.

They spew toxic poisons. They are made in Communist China. They are often overrun with weedy vines, also blocking the sunlight. To kill the weeds, toxic herbicides are used, threatening the groundwater.

It’s all one big fraud. Corrupt solar contractors pay off corrupt politicians who give the corrupt contractors “permission” to build yet more and more unwanted solar industrial complexes.

It goes on. Congress certainly doesn’t work. Mark Twain once called Congress America’s “only native criminal class.” Just take one look at The Squalid (Squad to all the uninitiated out there) and you have all the proof you need.

Congress doesn’t have real committee hearings anymore. All they are focused on is fundraising and their own PR, both to benefit their own reelection. Bureaucracy doesn’t work except to further their own aims.

Does anyone think a teacher actually teaches anymore? We are graduating illiterates.

Poems and songs have been written in the past about the “music” of America. Real poems. Not the farcical crap being pushed by Maya Angelou and other faux poets.

The great Carl Sandburg once wrote a poem about the mightiness of Chicago. Would anybody write such a poem about the Chicago of today?

Remember when the media used to reliably tell the truth? Today, they don’t know the difference between John Locke and Sondra Locke.

The liberal media doesn’t know when to scratch their watches, or wind their a**es. Let’s face it, everything liberals touch turns to mud.

And as for the Biden administration? They are finding there is a vast difference between running for office and holding that office.

You can’t run a country from a basement. Innocent people are dying in Afghanistan due to Biden’s incompetence.

American morale is tanking because of Biden’s incompetence. Inflation is rising due to Biden’s incompetence. The border is collapsing because of Biden’s incompetence.

He is one of the worst presidents in recent memory. No wonder states and localities are moving toward secession. He is the James Buchanan of the 21st century.

Notice how few people are wearing masks, despite the urging from government? Part of it is confusion, but a big part of it is simple civil disobedience.

People want their government to know they are not wearing masks. It should be seen as a vote of no confidence and one that Biden is losing in a landslide.

His polling is sinking faster than the Titanic, now at just 41%, and his tomfoolery is exacerbating the fear already gripping America.

I can't say there is a solution to all this except to edit the government out of our lives as much as possible. We can pay our bills online, thus evading the post office.

Reports are increasing of small businesses not paying their federal taxes. We can speak out, mobilize, and vote our consciences. We still control our own destinies.

No doubt the GOP will retake Capitol Hill in 2022. But this time, they have to do something.

It isn’t enough to just oppose Biden, though opposing stupidity and maliciousness is always a good thing. No, the GOP has to stand for something this time.

They won’t get leadership from the RNC or any of the party committees. It will have to come from somewhere else.

Maybe a man or woman will step forward to lead the GOP the way Newt Gingrich did in 1994, leading to the historic 104th Congress. The GOP can’t control the incompetence of Joe Biden. But it can offer ideas, solutions, and hope to the American people.

And it can start by encouraging us to trust ourselves again as Ronald Reagan said in 1980.

Craig Shirley is a Ronald Reagan biographer, presidential historian, and four-time best-selling author. His most recent book is ''Mary Ball Washington,'' a definitive biography of George Washington’s mother. Read Craig Shirley's Reports — More Here.