George Clooney

Do You Believe In Miracles?

president-trump-public-domainWe have never seen anything like this in the history of American politics.  Donald Trump’s shocking victory on election night is nothing short of a modern day miracle.  Several weeks ago I told my readers that it would take the biggest political miracle ever in order for Trump to win, and I had been strongly urging them to vote, but even early on election night I was skeptical that Trump could actually pull it off.  Initially the results coming out of Florida, North Carolina and Ohio looked rather ominous, and a lot of Trump supporters were freaking out.  But those initial numbers strongly reflected early voting results, and those results typically favor Democrats.  Once the Election Day numbers started rolling in, it was clear that there was a massive unanticipated wave of momentum for Trump.

Once I saw that Virginia was going to be much more tightly contested than anticipated and that Trump had jumped out to a lead in Michigan, I realized that Trump had a really good shot at winning the whole thing.  Over Skype I told a stunned audience that the numbers were looking really good for Trump, but it was still so early in the evening that I don’t know if a lot of people believed me.  And I certainly didn’t blame them, because I could hardly believe it myself.

Once Trump took the lead for good in Pennsylvania, I knew that it was all over.  My wife and I looked at each other in disbelief, and we are still trying to come to grips with a future that we didn’t think was possible.

Watching Donald Trump speak to the American people after he had been declared the winner was a surreal experience.  At this moment, it still doesn’t seem real to me that he could become the next president of the United States a little more than two months from now.  But at this point it looks like that is precisely what is going to happen.

After it was all over, I kind of stumbled around my home lost in my thoughts.  I was happy, confused, hopeful, stunned and pensive all at the same time.  Like so many others, what I thought I knew about politics turned out to be wrong.  But in other ways, the election of Donald Trump has confirmed so much of what I know to be right about America.

Ultimately, it was the American people that decided this election, because the elite were doing their best to absolutely bury him.

Never before has the mainstream media been so openly biased against a major party presidential candidate.  For months on end they dumped sewage on Trump, but it didn’t work.

Never before has a major party presidential candidate faced a civil war in his own party on the eve of the election.  A whole host of big names in the Republican Party publicly announced that they would not vote for Trump, but it didn’t work.

Never before have we seen a bigger October surprise than the lewd tape from 11 year ago that came out and shocked the world.  That would have instantly killed the campaign of any normal politician, but it didn’t kill Trump’s campaign.

From the very beginning it seemed like Trump was at war with almost everyone, and somehow he came out on top in the end.

He beat the Bushes and the Clintons.

He beat the Republicans and the Democrats.

He beat Hollywood and the mainstream media.

He beat the pollsters and the pundits.

He beat the never-Trumpers and the billionaire donors.

He beat Miley Cyrus, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Jay Z, Beyonce, George Clooney, Matt Damon and Lebron James.

He beat the forces of globalism, elitism and political correctness.

He beat CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and Barack Obama.

He beat them all.

Of course Donald Trump is not perfect and he is not going to be a perfect president.

But this is about as perfect a moment as you are going to get in American politics.

Donald Trump took on the entire American political universe and he won.

We have never seen anything like it before, and I doubt we will ever see anything like it again.

And I want to apologize for being so skeptical to those that kept trying to tell me that Trump was going to win.  As a former attorney, I was trained to be skeptical and to look at the cold, hard numbers.  And the cold, hard numbers kept telling me that a Trump victory was nearly impossible.

I kept strongly urging people to vote, particularly because the prospect of a Hillary Clinton presidency was absolutely horrifying for me personally, but I was not optimistic.

In hindsight, perhaps we all should have recognized that the signs were there.  For example, it seems a very strange “coincidence” that Donald Trump will be 70 years, 7 months and 7 days old on his first full day as president of the United States.  This is a man that appears to have had a date with destiny, and we shall see what happens in the months to come.

Yes, there will be great challenges ahead, but those discussions are for another day.

Today I am just happy.

I am happy that the American people have elected a man that I will be proud to call president.

And I am happy that we are not going to have to endure four years under the most wicked, vile and corrupt politician that the United States has ever seen.

Against all odds, Donald Trump won.

At this point I am not exactly sure what comes next for America, but things are definitely looking a lot brighter today than they did yesterday.

The $100 Billion Storm: 17 Things You Should Know About Hurricane Sandy

Meteorologists are warning that Hurricane Sandy could potentially be the worst storm to hit the east coast of the United States in 100 years.  Do you remember “the perfect storm” back in 1991?  That storm was so bad that Hollywood made a blockbuster movie starring George Clooney about it.  Well, this storm is going to be much worse.  When I first heard about Hurricane Sandy, I didn’t make that much of it.  I figured that the east coast would get some wind and some rain and that they would whine about it a bit but that everything would be just fine.  But then I started looking into this storm a bit more.  It turns out that this storm is even larger than Hurricane Katrina was.  The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has categorized the destructive potential of this storm to be 5.8 on a scale that goes from 0 to 6.  So don’t be fooled when you hear that this is only a “category 1 storm” or that the maximum winds will only be around 80 MPH.  It is the unprecedented size of this storm and the mind boggling storm surges that it is producing that truly make it dangerous.  It is being reported that Hurricane Sandy is more than 1,000 miles across from one end to the other.  Meteorologists have never seen anything quite like this before, and we are most definitely in unprecedented territory.  One meteorologist is already projecting that this megastorm could cause 100 billion dollars in damage, but the true amount of devastation will likely not be fully known for weeks.  If you live in the northeast part of the United States, you definitely want to buckle up because you are about to get absolutely hammered.

The following are 17 things that you should know about Hurricane Sandy…

#1 Hurricane Sandy has been dubbed “the Frankenstorm” and many believe that this could be the worst storm to hit the east coast in 100 years.

#2 This is an absolutely massive megastorm.  It is being reported that tropical storm-force winds can be felt 520 miles away from the center of the storm.

#3 It is being reported that the sheer size of this storm is absolutely unprecedented…

Since records of storm size began in 1988, no tropical storm or hurricane has been larger, reports meteorologist Jeff Masters of the Weather Underground.

#4 Hurricane Sandy has already forced the cancellation of over 5,000 flights.

#5 Mayor Bloomberg has announced a mandatory evacuation for all New York City residents that are living in “Zone A”.

#6 It is being projected that the storm surge from Hurricane Sandy could be up to 15 feet above sea level in some areas of New York City.

#7 New York City could potentially experience wind speeds of 80 MPH or higher.

#8 Subway service in New York City is being shut down at 7 PM on Sunday evening.  There is a very real possibility that the New York City subway system could be severely flooded by this storm.  That could be quite crippling, because about 4.3 million people ride the subway in New York every single day.

#9 It has been announced that all public schools in New York City will be closed on Monday.

#10 Schools in Boston will be shut down on Monday as well.

#11 The trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange will be closed on Monday.

#12 50,000 people living along the coast in Delaware have been ordered to evacuate.

#13 Some parts of Kentucky, West Virginia and North Carolina could get up to 2 feet of snow.

#14 It is being estimated that 10 million people living along the east coast could lose power thanks to Hurricane Sandy.

#15 A state of emergency has already been declared in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia.

#16 Approximately 50 million people live in the areas that will be directly affected by this storm.

#17 Meteorologist Mike Smith of AccuWeather Enterprise Solutions is projecting that Hurricane Sandy could potentially cause a total of 100 billion dollars in damage to the U.S. economy.  That would make it a far more costly disaster than Hurricane Katrina.

Many meteorologists are calling this storm a “worst case scenario”.  If you live along the east coast, please take the warnings that you are getting from public officials very seriously.  According to NPR, conditions are absolutely perfect for this slow moving giant storm, and it is going to take quite a few days for it to exit the region…

In this case, seas will be amped up by giant waves and full-moon-powered high tides. That will combine with drenching rains, triggering inland flooding as the hurricane merges with a winter storm system that will worsen it and hold it in place for days.

Louis Uccellini, environmental prediction chief for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told The Associated Press that given Sandy’s due east-to-west track into New Jersey, that puts the worst of the storm surge just north in New York City, Long Island and northern New Jersey. “Yes, this is the worst case scenario,” he said.

Please do not underestimate this storm.  This is unlike anything that any of us have ever seen before.

If you live in a part of the country that is being affected by this storm, please feel free to leave a comment and let us know what you are seeing in your area.  It is going to be a crazy couple of days.