After being away for eighteen months, I have returned to a different country.
Many moons ago I played baseball. I was lousy but I did pay attention to the coach. He explained that oftentimes when a pitcher makes a change in his motion—for the worse—he sets off a chain reaction that leads to really bad pitching. So let’s say that he is throwing his elbow out a little too much. He compensates with his back, and finally changes his leg motion. Similarly, Democratic power leads to DEI and Marxist policies which lead to terrible domestic and foreign policies which lead to a serious decline in the quality of life and the future prospects of the U.S.
As a preface, I can say that I did not plan to write for the coming few weeks. We took a long overdue family vacation, and I pointedly left my computer at home. My sons did not. Getting out of Israel had its challenges. We were booked on a flight with Lufthansa from Tel Aviv to Munich, continuing to Los Angeles on a massive A380 super-jumbo. Lufthansa cancelled all Israeli flights until November 11th, due to the war and Iranian missiles. Our intrepid travel agent got us switched to El-Al out of the country. The problems started during online check-in before the flight. By mixing unrelated companies, I could get boarding passes for the first flight but not for the second. I felt naked without a boarding pass when we arrived in Munich. On the freezing tarmac, the Germans made the same mistake that they did in World War II. When everything goes to plan, nobody can beat the Germans. When something goes sideways, they don’t have a clue how to react. All of the El Al passengers with connections were herded into a single bus to be taken to the terminals. The bus was about to leave when a howl came out: they had taken the baby strollers and sent them along to their final destinations! The livid parents would not budge until they had their strollers back to deal with their infants in the terminal. The Germans relented but at the cost of those with short layovers who were missing their flights. They said that a second bus to deal with the hurried connecting passengers and the angry parents was impossible. I went through the Munich terminal, waiting to be stopped for having no boarding pass. Finally, just before our gate, I spied a Lufthansa service center and we got our boarding passes. They lost one of our bags, the one that of course had all of our grandson’s clothing in it.
Being back in the U.S. is always a thrill. As usual, the people have been great and friendly, from the Customs agent who processed us to the local waiters and salespeople who still smile. One of my first acts was to vote, something that I did with our dual-citizen children. We want a better and brighter future for the U.S., and that means getting rid of the Democrats, DEI, irresponsible fiscal and foreign affairs policies, and the sheer disdain Democrats hold for much of the country.
Sometimes when one is away long enough, he can see changes that stand out. Clearly, everything is much more expensive. Dropping a hundred bucks at the grocery store does not get you very much today. Food prices are high and in many cases products are getting smaller. Something else I noticed was that the quality of the goods in many stores seemed worse. My wife enjoys shopping the TJ Maxx/Marshalls/Ross stores. There is nothing like them in Israel and certainly nothing can match the prices. What I noticed was that the quality of many of the clothing items sold in these stores seemed to be worse than in the past. The wonder of these stores was that one could get designer names or quality goods for less (“Max for the Minimum, TJ Maxx”—I still remember the jingle). In order to hit their price points and remain competitive, it would appear that the stores are making noticeably cheaper products. If a shirt has to be $10, and starting materials are no longer $3 but rather $6, something has to give.
On our first night in LA, our daughter-in-law saw with my wife someone stealing from a Ross store. He walked out with stolen goods and then did a fist pump in the air as he made his way into the Los Angeles night. Our Israeli daughter-in-law was dumbfounded to see such an event occur before her very eyes: someone simply stealing goods and walking off, an unfortunate but frequent part of present-day California life. My wife and I had seen it at a Marshalls in Vegas on our last trip, but now the phenomenon is so common that I noticed tonight that there is no more greeter at Walmart. Maybe they don’t want to make the thieves feel uncomfortable. Maybe this person is the last line of defense and is the most vulnerable to being harmed should he or she confront a thief who cannot produce a receipt. Walmart had men’s boxers and basic electronic goods behind glass.
Either a society lives by a moral code or it is doomed to destruction. The obvious and proper response to shoplifting is the arrest of the perpetrators and the protection of property rights. Store security, police, and citizens should be empowered to stop thieves by all necessary means. Only a defective society would allow theft to occur and punish the good citizens with higher prices, fewer choices, more items behind glass, and risk of injury from the thieves on their way out. A democracy or any system of government that does not have a solid moral underpinning will collapse from the weight of its own destructive hypocrisy. A recent report said that Kamala Harris was exhausted. Of course she is: as a DEI beneficiary, she has never had to work hard at anything in her life until having to face Donald Trump. Her competitor has always worked hard, and thus Joe Rogan could marvel at his stamina during and after their 3 hour podcast.
It is my hope and prayer that the U.S. has its best days in front of it. Donald Trump wants to return the U.S. to its proper course for success. He has added to his team Elon Musk who plans to reduce both the size of the US bureaucracy and the annual budget. Bobby Kennedy Jr. wishes to make the U.S. healthier than it has been. Anyone who can bring the receipts on Tony Fauci and his cabal is OK in my book. May we see a far better U.S. after November 5th, and may Donald Trump survive and get through all that they will throw in his way in order to keep him from returning to the Oval Office. If Republicans win big, the U.S. will have its best days still to come.