Dear Friends,
Good morning. Two of my activities met last week, back to back so I had the opportunity to ask the members about the presidential candidates for 2020.
The first was the meeting of my book club. Ten of us get together five times each year and discuss the book one of us selected. We talk about the book at 5 p.m. followed by an elaborate dinner. It’s great fun. We’re all tucked into our beds by 9:30 p.m.
At age 83, I’m the third youngest of the 10. Several of us are in our 90s. One fought in the Battle of the Bulge at the close of World War II. All but I have their roots in Philadelphia.
For most of our lives, all were registered Republicans. Today, nine of the 10 have reregistered either as Independents or Democrats. I’m the sole Republican although many of you readers consider me to be a RINO (Republican in name only).
The book we discussed was “Howard’s End Is on the Landing: A year of reading from home by Susan Hill.” Searching for the book, “Howard’s End” one day, the novelist Susan Hill encountered a mountain of unread Booker prize winners. So she stopped buying books for a year to explore her own voluminous bookshelves instead.
As I read her description of various titles, I thought about Mighty Betsy’s and my home in Quakertown and the thousands of books that occupy all three floors. I’ll bet that your house is full of books too. I was not fond of Susan Hill’s book but it did get me thinking.
Anyway, during dinner, I asked the book club who was at the top of their list for the 2020 presidential election? All were opposed to President Trump but didn’t think that he’d face opposition in the 2020 Republican Primary. (I’m not so sure about that.) Two of us (me included) thought highly of Michael Bloomberg, the former three-term mayor of New York City. The office of the New York City mayor is known as the second most difficult of all political posts … only the presidency is more demanding. I look at Michael Bloomberg as a fiscal conservative with a strong liberal approach to social problems.
One of us liked Elizabeth Warren … several thought former Vice President Joe Biden would be the logical choice. We’ll see.
And the very next day, the February meeting of Grumbles took place at the Piper Tavern in Pipersville. I recall several Republican office-holders being arrested for bribery in the late 1960s at the Piper. It was quiet a story. I think Ward Clark might have been the Bucks DA for that “sting.”
Anyway, the main discussion was not about President Trump or those who want to succeed him. Instead, our attention was focussed on the Claire Risoldi trial that had just concluded at the Bucks County Court. We wondered about the severity of the sentence she faces. Stay tuned.
Meanwhile, the former state representative of the 145th district (Upper Bucks) sent another provocative letter to me. “The mainstream media, including the so-called news anchors for CNN and MSNBC have one objective … to destroy or impeach our duly elected President Donald Trump,” Paul Clymer’s letter began.
“For two years, the liberal news media have ‘spit out’ their anti Trump bias to bring down this president. Truth and integrity, once the standard of the news industry has been devoured by hate and anger. Notice the fishing frenzy by the liberal news media when Buzz Feed reported that President Trump had directed his attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about his involvement in the proposed Trump Tower for Russia.
“The liberal news media is still scraping egg off their face since the Mueller special counsel reported that the Buzz Feed report was a lie. Tragically, our Democracy suffers when fake news and smear campaigns become the norm for the news media.
“Then we have The New York Times reporting that Donald Trump was a special Russian agent. Outrageous and ignorant, however, the NYT is anti-Trump … should we expect less?
“While the mainstream media continues its attack of hatred and anger against this president, the pages of the press remain blank when it comes to reporting the conspiracy by high level officials in the FBI and the Department of Justice to derail the Trump presidency.
“You claim President Donald Trump will be out of office by 2019. To begin, I believe if and when Special Counsel Mueller and his band of 13 pro-Hillary [Clinton] Democrats investigators release their report, President Trump will be exonerated. The witch hunt will be over.
“Second, the real Russian Collusion was between the Democratic National Committee and Candidate Hillary Clinton who paid for the dirty dossier that led to Mueller’s investigation.
“Third, President Trump has demonstrated outstanding leadership at home and abroad. He has embraced God, Country and Honor.
“Meanwhile, the radical leftists of the Democratic Party are placing their support for winning in 2020 on race bating, character assassination, impeachment, Russian Collusion and more fake news from their friends in the mainstream media,” the Clymer letter concluded.
Friends, if you ever wonder about what the solid-rock support from Trump’s base looks like, you need to look no further than former state Rep. Paul Clymer.
Will Donald Trump be out of office by 2019? Let us pray!
Sincerely, Charles Meredith
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