Mountain Views News, Sierra Madre Edition [Pasadena] Saturday, December 24, 2016

B4

OPINION 

DICK Polman

Mountain Views-News Saturday, December 24, 2016 

HAPPY HOLIDAYS, 

MERRY CHRISTMAS

JOHN L. MICEK


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- It’s Not What 
You Say, It’s 
How You Say It

Another year, another 
fake ‘War on 
Christmas’ is almost 
in the books.

On Sunday morning, 
a great many of us will wake up, pad quietly 
downstairs, pour some coffee and wish our 
spouses and children a Merry Christmas.

Others among us will light candles, recite 
prayers, and wish each other a Happy 
Hanukkah.

Others won’t do anything at all.

But what is certain is that government 
agents won’t come tumbling down the 
chimney. No one will try to stop you from 
giving your kid that Hatchimal thing -- assuming 
you could find one.

Yet, every year, at just around this time, we 
get hopelessly exercised over whether someone 
wishing us “Happy Holidays” instead of 
“Joyeux Noel,” is that final signal that the 
barbarians are at the gates, the last confirmation 
that western civilization is about to 
go tumbling into the abyss.

We’ve spent months staring at each other 
across the battlements. Clinton supporters. 
Trump supporters. The determinative 
minority who cast their ballots for Jill Stein. 
That guy who voted for Gary Johnson.

None of us agree on anything. So we argue 
about stuff like this.

But you’d think, at least, we could agree that 
it’s not how we extend our good wishes to 
each other during the holidays, rather, it’s 
the authenticity of the sentiment behind 
how we say those words that really counts.

I am no less in earnest when I wish those 
whose religious inclinations are unknown 
to me “Happy Holidays,” than when I tell a 
Christian friend “Merry Christmas.” 

The warmth behind both is equally genuine. 
As I am sure it is with everyone else.

Because, as I am so vividly reminded at this 
time of year, not everyone celebrates Christmas 
or even Hanukkah, for that matter. 

It’s not being politically correct. It’s just being 
polite. 

And, while we’re at it, if the biggest beef you 
have at this time of the year is whether the 
clerk at Target wishes you “Happy Holidays” 
or “Merry Christmas,” I’m calling 
shenanigans.

When others are sweating the bills and getting 
food on the table, or, worse, dodging 
bombs in Aleppo, that is a #FirstWorldProblem 
of the highest order.

Mere verbiage shouldn’t stand in the way of 
us being decent to each other.

Our shared humanity should be enough to 
bring us together - no matter how we celebrate 
about the holidays or how we extend 
our good wishes to others.

That’s particularly true after the brutal and 
endless campaign cycle that we’ve just gone 
through.

Sadly, we’re probably going to spend the 
next four years arguing with each over ... 
well ... everything.

So you’d think we could put down our 
spears just long enough to get sloppy together 
on egg nog and wake up as a country 
wondering what we did at the office party 
the night before.

Because when you think about it, Christmas 
is maybe one of three times all year when 
Americans are truly united.

The second is the Fourth of July, where we 
collectively try to convince ourselves that 
Budweiser isn’t truly awful.

And the third is the Super Bowl, where we 
join together as one people to proclaim 
that the Dallas Cowboys are the root of all 
earthly evil.

Yeah ... I know ... Bellichick. I’m a Patriots 
fan, and even I get that.

Still, that’s the beauty of the season. For just 
a couple of days, we can put our differences 
aside to blast “Christmas is the Time to Say 
I Love You,” by Billy Squier, because, of 
course.

You don’t have to be Christian to be overwhelmed 
by the solemn beauty of a midnight 
mass. You don’t have celebrate the 
nativity to be held spellbound by the giddy 
beauty of twinkling Christmas lights.

Nor do you have to be Jewish to accept the 
fundamental truth that a well-done latke is 
its own kind of miracle. 

Because when someone looks you in the eye 
sometime between now and the turn of the 
New Year, and you feel the warmth radiating 
off them, that their hope that your all 
your Christmases (or Hanukkahs or whatever) 
are bright, is actually physically palpable, 
that’s the spirt of the season right there.

Happy Holidays. Merry Christmas. However 
you celebrate, or even if you don’t, I wish 
you and yours peace. 

See you in 2017.

John L. Micek is the Opinion Editor and Political 
Columnist for PennLive/The Patriot-
News in Harrisburg, Pa. 


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LEFT TURN/RIGHT TURN

MAKING SENSE

by MICHAEL REAGAN

RAGING MODERATE 

by WILL DURST

WHY EVEN HAVE A BORDER?

 Why does California even bother to have a border? 

 Why does the United States of America?

 In 2013 the governor of our one-party state, Jerry Brown, 
and the Democrats in Sacramento effectively turned California 
into a sanctuary state.

 They told Washington that if any of the illegal immigrants 
arrested here had not committed a serious crime they would 
not be turned over to federal immigration officials for 
deportation.

 Now the council of Santa Ana has voted to join more than 30 other California 
towns that have declared themselves sanctuary cities.

 Already L.A, San Francisco, San Diego and Oakland won’t cooperate with federal 
officials or spend any of their resources to look for people who are in the USA 
illegally.

We’ll see how tough the politicians running these cities and places like Chicago are 
when the Trump administration starts cutting off their federal funding.

 Meanwhile, the state I love continues to be abused by the Progressive Gestapo 
(PG) in Sacramento that doesn’t care who gets hurts by their open-door immigration 
policies or their terrible regulations and nonstop tax hikes.

 The working-class Latinos who live here – the legal ones, the American citizens 
– and the working poor are the ones who’ll lose their jobs to the cheaper labor of 
illegal aliens. 

The state’s “Haves” – the Hollywood elites, Silicon Valley computer engineers and 
lifetime political hacks -- are not going to lose their jobs to an illegal immigrant 
from Mexico. 

 It’s going to be the “Have Nots” – the gardeners, day laborers and entry-level 
restaurant workers. 

 They’ll be the ones who’ll be hurt by the incoming waves of illegal immigrants 
that California’s Progressive Gestapo greets with open arms and treats better than 
the state’s shrinking number of taxpayers.

 Illegal immigrants in California already get free health services and schools for 
their kids. They already can get a driver’s license. Now they’re talking about letting 
them vote. 

In California, there’s a whole industry built around supplying fake Social Security 
cards. You can buy one and get it in an hour. Then you have the paperwork you need 
to take someone’s job away from them.

 So watch out, America.

 California is where most of our worst ideas about government are incubated and 
put into practice.

 Unless Donald Trump’s get-tough policy on illegal immigration turns things 
around, the Progressive Gestapo might be coming to your state and town next – if 
it’s not already there.

 California is a 40-year-old train wreck and it’s only getting worse. Major 
corporations are moving their headquarters to other states. People who own homes 
and pay taxes are leaving too.

 A friend of mine who had immigrated to America from communist Czechoslovakia 
recently gave up on California.

 The Golden State was looking more and more to him like the country he escaped 
from in 1986, so he sold his house and moved to Puerto Rico.

 Immigrants from around the planet used to come to America to work hard, get 
rich and become Americans. Now they come here – often illegally -- and want 
Americans to assimilate to their cultures and give them free stuff. 

 It’s getting so crazy in California, legal immigrants from Mexico are thinking of 
moving back.

——-

 Copyright ©2016 Michael Reagan. Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald 
Reagan, a political consultant, and the author of “The New Reagan Revolution” (St. 
Martin’s Press). He is the founder of the email service reagan.com and president of 
The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Visit his websites at www.reagan.com and www.
michaelereagan.com. Send comments to Reagan@caglecartoons.com. Follow @
reaganworld on Twitter. 

 Mike’s column is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For 
info on using columns contact Sales at sales@cagle.com.


REPUBLICANS ARE THE 
MASTERS OF NOT GETTING 
OVER THINGS

And now a few choice words for all Republicans advising 
Democrats to “stop whining about the election and get over 
it.” Oh, really. Get over losing a presidential election to a high-
strung petulant flake soon to be in possession of the nuclear 
codes? Get over a man destined to be leader of the Free World 
tweeting frivolous 3 am insults at Alec Baldwin? 

 Exactly how does one get over that, pray tell? A fistful of barbiturates? A four-year 
nap? An eternal tray of mango Margaritas? Love it or leave it? Like it or lump it? The 
shuffling off of mortal coils? Climb a tower? Couple rounds of Russian roulette? 

 Perhaps an example of how Republicans get over something would help grease 
the skids here. Pull something out of your vast experience of “getting over it” for us. 
Like how you got over Barack Hussein Obama’s two election wins crying about his 
citizenship for eight years like little babies with colic whose diapers needed to be 
changed? That kind of getting over it? 

 Because, correct me if I’m wrong, but I seem to remember Mitch McConnell 
boasting that his first order of business as Senate Minority Leader was to deny 
Obama a second term. Epic fail on that getting over. 

 I also seem to remember the GOP Congress refusing to pass anything that would 
smack of giving Obama a single legislative victory including obstructing bills they 
previously proposed. Classic case of cutting-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face 
getting over it there. 

 I seem to remember Republicans trying to repeal Obama Care over 60 times. You 
mean that kind of getting over it? Does the term “getting over Benghazi” have any 
meaning here? Because if that’s the kind of bipartisan hand- holding you’re looking 
for, you’re about to get your wish. 

 Republicans aren’t just sore losers, they’re lousy winners too. If Hypocritical were 
an Olympic sport, the GOP would be deemed ineligible, having lost their amateur 
status right around the middle of Ulysses S. Grant’s first term. Republicans are to 
“getting over it” what Martha Stewart is to vertical zinc mines and Wayne Newton is 
to rock & roll. 

Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 3 million votes after being gang tackled 
by Wikileaks, an orange clown, the FBI and Russia. You mean Democrats aren’t 
supposed to report getting mugged by a foreign power? Isn’t failing to report a 
felony illegal? Are you advocating aiding and abetting here? But then again, nobody 
really cares, since the Russians are white. Or is it the oil? 

 Now Donald Trump is griping that nobody ever mentioned the possible hacking 
of the election until after he won. Wrong! There’s footage of him during the second 
debate saying maybe the hacking of the DNC’s emails wasn’t done by the Rooskies, 
but some 400- pound guy on a bed. Did he forget or is he just plain oblivious? 

 The Trumpeteers have perfected whining to such an art form that Kellyanne 
Conway’s gelatinous platitudes should be part of the permanent collection of New 
York’s Metropolitan Museum. We all know that if the tables were turned, Trump 
would be accusing Hillary of not only personally conspiring with Putin, but so deep 
in bed with him she could suck her comrade’s toes. Which, co- incidentally, are tiny.

——-

 Copyright © 2016, Will Durst, distributed by the Cagle Cartoons Inc. syndicate.

Will Durst is an award-winning, nationally acclaimed columnist, comedian and 
former assistant manager at a Pizza Hut in West Allis, Wisconsin. For a calendar of 
personal appearances, go to willdurst.com. 


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