1. It was another safe year for air travel. One Delta Air Lines jet did slide off the runway, but Delta made up the recovery cost by charging the passengers an exhilaration fee.
2. The Atlanta Braves had a surprisingly good season. They did not beat any attendance records, but at one game 40,000 fans showed up for Free 9-Millimeter Handgun Night.
3. The hyper-political embarrassments from the Obama Administration, James Comey, James Clapper and John Brennan, continued to undermine President Trump. They bragged that they "got" Osama bin Laden, which is true. Government ran an international manhunt for bin Laden for years; then someone came up with the bright idea: "Hey, let's go look to see if he is in his house."
4. Elizabeth Warren will not be getting an Indian casino license. Her epic embarrassment was claiming that her DNA test showing her to be 1/1000 Native American made her affirmative action hire justified. This is the woman who railed against the high cost of college while she taught one class at Harvard and got paid $300,000 a year. Even in the Senate, she made over $1 million last year. So, under Trump, she is doing even better financially.
5. France remained snooty toward the U.S. as its middle class rose up to burn Paris because of the damage done to them by out-of-touch liberal policies. The French showed no respect to the U.S., which has bailed them out of every war they surrendered in (basically, all of them). It was a teachable moment. If a cowardly country is helped out of being invaded, it will always remember you—the next time it is invaded. The French military have the only Swiss Army knife with a corkscrew.
6. The supposedly "tolerant" left continues to show intolerance of opposing views. Conservatives were harassed out of restaurants. Former Governor Mike Huckabee’s daughter, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders, was chased out of the Red Hen Restaurant. What sort of country have we become when a Sanders is kicked out of a restaurant named after a chicken? Obama’s spokesmen always ate at Burger King because it is the Home of the Whopper.
7. Ex-Fox News head Bill Shine became Trump's Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications. Fox had a great formula: smart women in short dresses reading right-of-center news. For years they made more money than anyone and slept with folks at work all the time. Say what you will, but no one was ever late to work back then.
8. The left tried to sabotage Justice Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination. The left was madder than MSNBC’s news room on President’s Day. It’s gotten to where now a Justice’s Senate confirmation hearing is like a fight with your wife. Everything you ever did or she thought you did ends up being criticized and thrown in your face.
9. For some reason, monopolistic institutions tilt left over time, as it is with our current Pope. He speaks out against capitalism and a border wall from behind the walls of the Vatican. We love the Pope but hope he avoids political ideology. Remember, the Gospels are not Matthew, Marx, Luke and John.
10. Evangelicals stuck with Trump in spite of his personal foibles. They’d rather go to a church with a guitar player than vote for a coastal liberal. They like Trump’s policies and overlook the man. Religion has become a modern-day interpretation of the Bible: God did, indeed, create Heaven and Earth, but after that pretty much everything else has been made in China.
11. Hemp essentially got legalized in the Farm Bill about the same time Japan announced creation of a beer that is 100% alcohol-free. That’s bananas. No one drinks beer for the taste. Drinking beer for its taste is like growing pot for its shade.
12. The country is not as divided on issues as are the politicians who bicker constantly along party lines. Republican and Democrat politicians argue so much that they seem like parents trying to raise their kids (America) while going through a nasty divorce. As Donald Trump’s team found out with all the dishonest prosecutions of them by the "Deep State," it's best not to get too close to Washington for the same reason you do not get too close to the baboon cage at the zoo.
Ron Hart is a libertarian op-ed humorist and award-winning author. Contact him at Ron@RonaldHart.com or @RonaldHart on Twitter.
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This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: A Look Back at 2018