It's December 12. It's been about five weeks since Donald Trump won the presidential election, and it will be another six-ish weeks before he takes the oath of office.

In the past five weeks, we have found out that a lot of what he said on the campaign trail was a lie. He was saying whatever he had to say, to pull votes from the Harris campaign and to collect votes for his own campaign.

Some of his lies

Immigration

One of the things I'm most incredulous about is the fact that he courted and received so many votes from immigrants, and children of immigrants. (Disclosure: I'm an immigrant. Came across the border with my parents when I was 7 years old. Had a green card for 15 years, then became a U.S. citizen. You wanna make something of it?) They thought that somehow they would be protected from Stephen Miller's Nazi-like excesses. But after the election, Trump and his team started talking about all of the immigrants they would be rounding up and deporting -- which included a lot of those who voted for him.

It might not be fair to call this a "lie." In my mind, Trump has always made it clear where he stood on immigration and immigrants. He only likes to keep them around to take advantage of them. Other than that, he'd like to get rid of them. And by immigrant, I think he means anyone who isn't of pure 100% European descent.

Steel

On October 19, three local unions of steelworkers in Pennsylvania endorsed Trump's candidacy, because he had promised that he would save the American steel industry and protect steelworkers' jobs. Then, on December 2, he said that he would block the US Steel merger with Japan's Nippon Steel. If the merger is blocked, US Steel has said that it will have to shut down many facilities and lay off thousands of workers. The steelworkers are not happy with Mr. Trump, after they gave him their vote and he double-crossed them.

Minorities, Diversity, Civil Rights

Conservative Black community leaders across the country endorsed Trump and influenced their followers to vote for him. After the election, when Trump was nominating members of his cabinet, he completely sidelined all of them, even though many Black leaders were more qualified for the cabinet positions than a lot of the cronies and TV personalities who did get nominated.

Food prices (Groceries!)

Trump also promised that he would bring down grocery prices for the average American. In August, he said:

"From the day I take the oath of office, we'll rapidly drive prices down, and make America affordable again. Prices will come down. You just watch. They'll come down, and they'll come down fast."

 It's not really clear how he would do this, especially with all the threats of tariffs he has been throwing around. In fact, in a Meet the Press interview, conducted on November 25 and aired on December 8, he said, "I won on groceries." However, later in the same interview, when asked whether he would consider it a failure of his presidency if grocery prices didn't come down, he said: 

"I don’t think so. Look, they got them up. I’d like to bring them down. It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up. You know, it’s very hard. But I think that they will."

Mm-hmm.

More to come

We've only scratched the surface on the lies and deceptions that Trump used to get elected. We have another four years to see what else he's going to pull out of his bu-- I mean, hat.

"Vote Now, Think Later"

Social media, blogs, and news stories have been full of examples of voters saying things like "I voted for Trump, but I didn't know he was going to do this. If I had known, I wouldn't have voted for him."

Clearly, he managed to sway a tiny bit over half the country into voting for him. That's how elections work, duh. But what's interesting is that the other half of the country knew exactly what was going on. They weren't fooled. 

And those who are now saying, "I voted for him, but I didn't think ..." ? THAT'S EXACTLY RIGHT! YOU DIDN'T THINK!

For these people, the election slogan rattling around in their brains wasn't "Make America Great Again," it was "Vote Now, Think Later." 

What to do about it?

The majority of Americans who voted for Trump have given him carte blanche to make a wreck out of the country for the next four years. Unfortunately, thanks to you idiots, there's nothing we can do about it until 2028. Hopefully, by then you will have learned to THINK BEFORE YOU VOTE.

Another impeachment won't happen, and even if it did, it wouldn't see him removed from office. With this cabinet, an Amendment 25 removal is off the table. That leaves stroke, heart attack, or other similar scenarios. But We The People will not be part of any of these power moves. We simply have to wait it out.

Syria: That took way too long

 On March 17, 2012, I wrote an article predicting the rapid downfall of Bashar al-Assad, the tyrant king of Syria.

Boy, was I wrong.

With help from Russia and Iran, two other autocratic states and international troublemakers, Assad brutally suppressed that rebellion. Unfortunately, he didn't stamp it out completely. Rebel groups remained active in regions of Syria, and the country has had to endure 12 years of back-and-forth violence between the government forces, backed by direct Russian and Iranian involvement, and the rebel forces, backed by direct American, Turkish, and other involvement.

And, of course, Israel was always there to stir the pot whenever it felt that its national security was threatened.

In addition, the Syrian government and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah terrorist organization openly supported each other, with Hezbollah assisting the government forces at times.

ISIS also had a stake in the game, with a strong presence in Syria, but ISIS was playing for ISIS, not for Syria or for the rebels.

That all changed rapidly in the last week of November, this year.

On November 27th, rebel forces  led by the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a former Al Qaeda affiliate, attacked the cities of Idlib and Aleppo in the north. After taking those two cities, they swept southward and took Homs, and finally Damascus on December 8th. (I think I got that day right.)

I MAY HAVE THE DETAILS OF THIS NEXT PARAGRAPH WRONG. I'LL HAVE TO CONFIRM THEM. THINGS HAVE BEEN HAPPENING FAST. Plus, I'm still grieving the loss of my son, and my mind is having trouble caring about what's happening in the rest of the world.

In the middle of the night, like at 2 a.m. on December 8th, just before the city fell, Assad loaded his family and much of his personal wealth (I'm talking about pallets loaded with cash and gold) onto a Russian transport plane and fled to Moscow.

The US assisted the rebels by suppressing an ISIS response. How did they do that? By bombing the crap out of ISIS camps, weapons caches, and other targets within Syria's borders. The US Air Force bombed literally thousands of ISIS sites in Syria.

Israel and Turkey took advantage of the Syrian government's helplessness to bolster their own national security. The Israeli navy destroyed the Syrian navy, tied up at docks in the port city of Latakia. The Israeli and Turkish air forces together destroyed 500 Syrian military targets over a two-day period, ensuring that Syria could no longer attack them or support attacks by other militant groups.

So here's the bottom line.

It didn't have to be this way. If Assad had responded differently to the May 2012 uprisings, he would still be in power, the country would be (relatively) at peace, and his people would enjoy the blessings of freedom, liberty, and prosperity.

But noooooooooo.

So he finally got what was coming to him. It's unfortunate that it took 12 years for it to happen.

Calling children by their full names

 We spent Thanksgiving this year with the family of one of our daughters. After dinner one night, one of her sons had a question for me.

He had noticed that all of the adults who know her address her by her first name, Kellie, except for me. I call her Kellie Jo, using both her first name and her middle name. He wanted to know why.

Hmm.

I think I gave him an adequate answer that night, but I have pondered on it ever since. I have often - not always, but often - called my children by their first and middle names. And I, myself, started to wonder why.

I got it figured out.

This week, my brother ran into a family friend from long ago - so long ago that they probably used to ride tricycles together. The boy's name was Greg. I have distinct memories of his mother yelling at him when he was in trouble, using his first and middle names: "Gregory Grant!" I heard it more than once. Sorry, Greg, I really didn't think you were that bad as a kid.

That reminded me of my own mother.  My mother was a great lady, but let's face it, she had anger-management issues. And when she yelled at us using our full names, we knew that she was really mad at us, or we were in deep trouble, or both. (And she didn't just use first and middle name, it was the whole enchilada.)

This next part of the story all happened in my subconscious. I admit that I have never given it any conscious thought. In fact, I didn't realize all of this until this week, when I put two and two (that is, "Kellie Jo" and "Gregory Grant!") together.

Subconsciously, I decided that I didn't want my own children to associate their names with an angry father, or with trouble. And besides, I was proud of the names we had given them.

So from the very start, I would address them using both their first and middle names. Not always, but often enough that it wasn't unusual.

Jason Daniel. Kellie Jo. Lori Dawn. Sandra Michelle. Christopher Michael (or "Chris Mike" for short).

 Whether it was a simple call to come to dinner, or a loving way to get their attention, or in the midst of playing a game or having fun, I would use both names. Over time (I hoped, subconsciously), they learned to associate their full names with love. And fun. And respect, and pride.

This many years later, when they hear their full name, I hope that it reminds them how much their father loves them.