RUTHFULLY YOURS

This has been a disappointing political year for Democrats, and those with Senate seats decided to end it with a final blaze of ineptitude. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and colleagues were threatening a partial government shutdown ahead of a midnight deadline, only to fold shortly before we went to press on Friday.

On Thursday the House passed a continuing resolution funding the government through April; the 326-96 vote included a majority of both parties. The House has now left town for the year, but all 46 Senate Democrats deemed the measure inadequate. They dropped their objections with the vote looming, but there are more than a few ironies folded into their obstruction.

One is that liberals used to say that holding up a budget (at least when Republicans take the hostage) would hurt the economy and lead to anarchy, if not an extinction-level crisis. The truth is that American life goes on when federal functions not deemed “essential” are interrupted for a couple days until Washington resolves its differences. Usually shutdowns also provide an education in how few functions really are essential.

Now Democrats have rediscovered the power of the purse, just in time for a Trump Administration. We opposed the various Republican brinksmanship strategies over the years not because they were illegitimate but because they were politically inept and likely to fail on the merits. This Democratic stand was dumb and illegitimate.

Mr. Manchin’s complaint is that health benefits for 16,300 retired coal miners expire on Dec. 31. But the continuing resolution has a stopgap preserving these benefits through April while the debate continues. If Democrats had blocked the CR, the miners would lose their benefits on Dec. 31.

Mr. Manchin and the likes of Sherrod Brown of Ohio were also demanding that Congress bail out the coal miners union pension fund. This is the kind of request that typically requires legislation and in any case the fund is solvent for a couple more years, but this Democratic stand on the alleged behalf of the working man is a little rich.

President Obama has been a four-star general in the war against coal. Then there’s Hillary Clinton’s campaign platform, which she herself managed to describe in May as “we’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.” The unions would have more money to pay for pensions and health care if Democrats didn’t do so much to bankrupt the industry.

Meanwhile, Minority Leader Harry Reid gave his farewell address on Thursday, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the place, because everybody is so happy he’s leaving the Senate. The Nevadan used the occasion to denounce the scourge of “fake news.” “Separating real from fake has never been more important,” said the man who once told a completely fabricated story about Mitt Romney’s taxes.

The city that hosted anti-Trump demos after the election has a record of blatant anti-Zionism, which is a crude mask for its twin, anti-Semitism.

The late November sky was gray and murky over Portland, Oregon when hundreds of Israel haters descended upon City Hall with the sole purpose of driving yet another nail into the reputation, honor and survival of the one Jewish state in the world: Israel.

The meeting was held in the city known for its renowned and beautiful rose test gardens, yet for supporters and defenders of Israel very little was coming up roses.

According to a Jewish Federation of Greater Portland survey taken some years ago, the Jewish population numbers some 47,500. Yet from this surprisingly high number of Jewish residents in this Pacific Northwest city barely a handful came to City Hall to defend and support the Jewish state.

In stark contrast, the City Commissioners were assailed with a tsunami of anti-Israel falsehoods so ugly and groundless that they could only have been manufactured in the fevered minds of those consumed by a corrosive and anti-Semitic hatred.

There is now a great danger to the integrity of the Portland City Council if it succumbs to the mendacious anti-Israel hate fest launched upon it by the notorious BDS movement in collusion with far left church groups and the renegade and morally confused organization calling itself Jewish Voice for Peace: All masquerading as human rights organizations.

Among the many falsehoods leveled against the embattled Jewish state – and the grotesque demonization of it – was the regurgitated myth of Rachel Corrie as a valiant peace activist. She was anything but.

Before the City Commissioners was the demand that Portland, Oregon divest from its investment pool all those companies that have business with the Jewish state, such as Caterpillar.

Among the many falsehoods leveled against the embattled Jewish state – and the grotesque demonization of it – was the regurgitated myth of Rachel Corrie as a valiant peace activist. She was anything but.

At best she was a foolish and indoctrinated useful idiot for Hamas. At worst she was a hater of America and Israel, but that did not stop her relatives from being present and poisoning the meeting with the pernicious myths they have helped weave around her.

In his article titled, Rachel Corrie Was No Peace Activist, Jonathan S. Tobin wrote a scathing expose of the Rachel Corrie myth, which has so effectively been exploited by BDS, ISM and others to disfigure Israel’s image and delegitimize it.

We pause today to remember the 2,403 American heroes who selflessly gave their lives at Pearl Harbor 75 years ago, on a date that will forever live in infamy. We also honor the 1,178 Americans who were wounded, and the countless others who instinctively did their duty, rushing to their posts in the midst of the chaos.

Their shared sacrifice reminds us of the great costs paid by those who came before us to secure the liberties we enjoy, and inspires us to rise to meet the new challenges that stand before us today.

America’s enemies have changed over the past 75 years. But the fact remains, as President Reagan said when first proclaiming National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, ‘there can be no substitute for victory’ in the pursuit of peace. Today we are the bearers of the torch of freedom these brave Americans passed on to us.

In honor of their faithfulness, and for the sake of generations to come, we will never allow that flame to be extinguished.

Donald J. Trump

President-Elect of the United States

Since 2010 everyone in the Republican party has agreed that Obamacare must be repealed. Most Republican members of Congress — ourselves included — were elected, and reelected, on the promise that we would take any opportunity possible to end this partisan, ham-handed, and unconstitutional law.

When Republicans attained control of both the House and Senate in 2015, we saw an opportunity to lay the foundation for full repeal under a possible future Republican president. To that end, we penned an article in National Review calling for Congress to send President Obama a bill repealing Obamacare. “It is more important than ever for Republicans in Congress to honor the promises we have made to the American people,” we wrote. “We can do this, before the end of the year, through a procedure known as ‘budget reconciliation.’”

House and Senate Republicans followed through on this promise. We sent a bill to President Obama’s desk that would have repealed much of the law, and was promptly — and unsurprisingly — vetoed. But this exercise was not, by any measure, a fruitless effort.

That bill, H.R. 3762, established the minimum standards against which any future Obamacare repeal bills would be measured. It zeroed out Obamacare’s individual and employer mandates, scrapped the taxes, revived health savings accounts, and rolled back the Medicaid expansion and subsidies. Majorities in the House and Senate are on record voting for all of these items. We can do it again.

But there is no denying that any new reconciliation repeal bill in the next Congress will have a different outcome. This time, when the House and Senate send such a bill to the White House, the incoming president has said he will sign it. That is why it is so important that we get this repeal bill right.

And the bare minimum simply is not enough this time.

A minimum effort could end up hurting many Americans. Specifically, the law’s many insurance mandates drive up health costs and force individuals to violate their deeply held religious convictions. When government bureaucrats and politicians decide that every insurance policy must cover free doctor visits and abortifacients and keep their children on their health-insurance plan through the age 26, Americans who don’t need those options end up paying more for products they don’t want. That’s great for the insurance companies, but not for taxpayers or consumers.