Updated May 25, 2023-
Memorial Day is to remember the men and women who died to protect our freedoms. But what would Abraham Lincoln say about political trends today?
Typically, as a holiday, when many Americans enjoy barbecues in the backyard and retailers stage sales to lure shoppers, Memorial Day marks the unofficial start of summer.
But the intended meaning goes far deeper.
Memorial Day is a day for remembrance – honoring the men and women who died while serving in the U.S. Armed Forces to protect our freedoms – from economic to political.
Here’s a poignant Memorial Day reminder:
Google the term “Memorial Day.” Instead of seeing thousands of links to articles explaining the importance of Memorial Day, you’ll thousands of links about products for sale in home remodeling or car sales events or things to do in communities across America.
You’ll also see thousands of articles about politics and Americans are paying the price. Rarely will you read about paying tribute to America’s fallen heroes.
What America’s military protects
America has more than one million heroes who have protected this country since they fought for freedom in the American Revolution from 1763 to 1783.
But sadly, politics has deteriorated to the worst it’s ever been.
Even many supporters of Joe Biden are alarmed by his dysfunction as they ‘regret voting for him’ trends on Google.
His tax plan threatens prosperity, opportunity and hope.
On May 20, 2020, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi likened President Trump to a kid with “doggy doo on his shoes.” Absurd attacks by her and other Democrats occur each day.
True, former President Trump has often been crude in criticizing Democrats. But countless members of the military and Republicans see him as striking back at opponents in standing for America — to make it great again.
The Rasmussen Reports poll, other than the USC Dornsife/LA Times Poll was one of only two polls that accurately predicted Donald Trump’s election victory over Hillary Clinton. On May 3, Rasmussen reported “Voters Say Trump’s Impeachment, Removal from Office Bad for Economy.”
So, many Americans now believe the acrimony and ever-continuing personal attacks by Democrats on Trump is unacceptable. Yet, even after Mr. Trump has left the White House the political attacks have escalated as they fear him, and are contributing to a new round of deadlock in the nation’s capital.
You might remember when Speaker Pelosi condescendingly said, “I pray for the President of the United States…I wish that his family or his administration or his staff would have wants the president’s family to stage an intervention “for the good of the country.”
True, as a culture-war president, President Trump has been polarizing after his successful efforts to save America’s culture by stopping illegal immigration and creating jobs. So, it was no surprise when he hit back calling her “crazy Nancy.”
Regarding his predecessor, it’s been well documented that Abraham Lincoln is the political idol of former President Barack Obama. Mr. Obama has even tried to emulate President Lincoln, at least, in one way.
In imitating the structure of the Gettysburg Address starting in January 2011, Mr. Obama ostensibly started to pattern his speeches after Honest Abe’s.
So it’s apropos to anticipate what the 16th president would say about the status of American patriotism today on Memorial Day now that more than one million Americans have given their lives.
Other than President Obama copying President Lincoln’s speech structure, the two presidents from Illinois have something else in common.
Each had polarizing results from their presidencies – Mr. Lincoln in saving the nation in the Civil War and Mr. Obama in 21st century far-left policies.
Popularity of Memorial Day
Ostensibly, it was very heartening when the respected Rasmussen Poll once showed an all-time high popularity for the Memorial Day holiday.
Unfortunately in 2016, Rasmussen Reports showed only 49 percent of American adults considered “Memorial Day as one of the nation’s most important holidays.”
Respect for patriotic Americans who serve in the military has always been a key issue for President Trump. Countless American military-service members have died to protect our freedoms as a democracy.
In many ways, economic and political freedoms are being trampled by President Biden’s socialistic measures — much worse than they were under Mr. Obama’s presidency.
It hasn’t happened yet to the Biden Administration, but one of the world’s most-trusted and largest news reporting services warned about censorship imposed by the Obama Administration. It was the organization’s second warning in 2014. Ignoring the public’s right to know is a serious accusation, especially from the Associated Press.
And the trend continued as Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton refused to accept the election of Mr. Trump.
They disingenuously tried to claim the high road while refusing to respect the wishes of American voters by continually trolling and criticizing the Trump presidency for his immigration stance, terrorism, and other patriotic issues such as his economic policies to reduce the nation’s massive debt.
Meantime, Mrs. Clinton has continued to claim numerous excuses for her loss (All of Hillary Clinton’s ‘but for’ excuses – The Washington Post). However, the truth is she lost because 63 million Americans wanted change after her huge scandal list exploded.
Chilling similarities
Despite the what the mainstream media would have us believe, the stench of her scandals and the Obama Administration’s IRS scandal and its dubious ties to the White House have been reminiscent of the same type of events in the Watergate scandal that also started in President Nixon’s first term.
The Republican break-in of the Democratic Party office at the Watergate Hotel was characterized as the work of just a few people.
Thanks to Deepthroat and the relentless investigation by two young Washington Post journalists, we gradually learned about hush money to the thieves, the stone-walling, lies, ties to the White House and other details of the cover up.
We learned about Mr. Nixon’s enemies’ list and his desire to use the IRS to further his goals. An article of impeachment resulted from his desired use of the IRS to target his enemies.
Genetic liberals and many Democrats disagree, but the facts are indisputable. The IRS scandal deepened by the day, and its deplorable events paralleled Watergate.
Starting in 2008, conservative and Tea Party groups were prevented from tax-exempt status but liberal groups weren’t. Some of the conservative organizations were threatened even though they already had received their tax-exempt status.
False claims
During the presidential election year, in March 2012, then-IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman told a House committee there was “absolutely no targeting.”
But Lois Lerner, the person in charge of the IRS office overseeing tax-exempt organizations, knew about the outrageous behavior of her employees in June 2011.
The scandalous IRS behavior continued another 11 months – until 2012 – the IRS was still developing tax-exempt guidelines.
This means the illicit activity continued for at least three months after Mr. Shulman’s misleading testimony before Congress. Worse, Mr. Shulman never returned to Congress to voluntarily correct his false statements.
In May 2013, in a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing televised by C-SPAN, Mr. Shulman appeared indifferent to concerns by Rep. John Mica (R-FL) that the targeted victims were gagged for political reasons by the IRS for 27 months.
Mr. Shulman denied there had been any concerns about the suppression of political beliefs.
Then, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) told him 132 members of Congress wrote him about such issues. To the nonchalant Mr. Shulman, Rep. Jordan told him there were 42 major news stories on Google.
It was also revealed Mr. Shulman had an extraordinary high number of meetings at the White House in 2010 and 2011 – 118 visits – an average of more than once per week. Rep. Gerald Connolly (D-VA) reminded Mr. Shulman he was under oath.
In denying he conspired with administration officials, Mr. Shulman claimed he only visited the White House for “the Easter egg roll” with his children and for other miscellaneous reasons.
The IRS also targeted other conservative groups – from religious organizations like the Rev. Billy Graham’s to patriotic groups that educated Americans on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
Nixon-like enemies’ list
Then, we learned more about Mr. Obama’s campaign enemies’ list, which included a businessman.
He was attacked with a tax audit and his company was hit with a Department of Labor audit after the Obama campaign Web site disingenuously defamed his integrity — along with seven others — for being a Romney donor.
The audits cleared him, but he was stuck with $80,000 in legal and accounting fees.
An Obama Administration employee falsely besmirched the reputation of a Koch Industries. It’s no secret those businesspeople opposed Obama Administration policies.
Sounding a lot like President Nixon and his officials in Watergate who were later imprisoned, Ms. Lerner denied any wrongdoing in her appearance before Congress.
Then she had the audacity to plead the Fifth Amendment – refusing to answer any questions about her role.
It’s an outrage that she used a Constitutional right that many Americans were denied by her 900 IRS employees.
Smoking gun
With the appearance of a smoking gun in an Obama campaign-IRS conspiracy to deny conservative fundraising in order to defeat Mitt Romney in the 2012 election, Mr. Obama met with anti-Tea Party IRS Union President Colleen Kelley just prior to the IRS attacks on the conservative groups.
More disingenuous behavior in the taxpayers’ White House: They put the person who oversaw the IRS tax-exempt division, Sarah Hall Ingram, in charge of implementing the highly controversial ObamaCare.
(Even some of Mr. Obama’s key union supporters demanded “repeal or complete reform” of ObamaCare.)
But even in the far-left bastion of the Huffington Post, in May 2013 Howard Fineman wrote:
“With two winning presidential campaigns built on successful grassroots fundraising, with a former White House counsel (in 2010-11) who is one of the Democrats’ leading experts on campaign law (Bob Bauer), with former top campaign officials having been ensconced as staffers in the White House . . . it’s hard to imagine that the Obama inner circle was oblivious to the issue of what the IRS was doing in Cincinnati.”
In case it isn’t obvious to you, the IRS scandal was about restricting freedoms – discouraging donations to conservative-minded opponents – to lower the level of free speech in a presidential campaign to steal an election.
Biden family scandals
Finally, also noteworthy are the Biden family scandals being investigated by the House of Representatives. The liberal media is ignoring the evidence of Mr. Biden lying to the American people about his involvement in his family’s business schemes.
Just days before Memorial Day 2023, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich predicted Biden admin will soon find themselves facing scandal bigger than Watergate.
So with all the unpatriotic trends, what would President Lincoln say today?
You know the answer.
Honest Abe believed in good government of the people, by the people, and for the people. And that the heroic men and women who have died to protect our freedoms deserve better — much better.
From the Coach’s Corner, here are additional public-policy articles.
“Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power.”
-George Bernard Shaw
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