Abraham Lincoln’s Birthday 2017

President Abraham Lincoln was a Republican. Honest Abe was the very first Republican president, and today is his birthday.

Abraham Lincoln is regarded as one of America’s greatest heroes due to both his incredible impact on the nation and his unique appeal. His is a remarkable story of the rise from humble beginnings to achieve the highest office in the land; then, a sudden and tragic death at a time when his country needed him most to complete the great task remaining before the nation. Lincoln’s distinctively human and humane personality and historical role as savior of the Union and emancipator of the slaves creates a legacy that endures. His eloquence of democracy and his insistence that the Union was worth saving embody the ideals of self-government that all nations strive to achieve.

Did you know that Abraham Lincoln was a bartender and that he owned his own tavern? This was before he became a lawyer and a politician.

Did you know that Abraham Lincoln was a wrestler who lost only one of about 300 matches? He’s honored in the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.

Abraham Lincoln was also an inventor; he got a patent on his design for a way to keep boats afloat in shallow water.

Lincoln also owned a newspaper at one point in his many careers.

President Lincoln had much in common with our current President Trump. Unlike many other presidents, Lincoln and Trump had “day jobs” of various sorts throughout their lives; both were quite successful at those jobs.

This is in marked contrast to the previous president, Barack Hussein Obama, who was a lawyer in name only, having barely practiced law, and who, for some reason, lacked even a license to practice when he entered the presidency. Obama’s job, before he entered IL state politics, was as a “community organizer,” a profession of which  most Americans were unaware when Obama ran for the presidency. Of course, if you believe his semi-fictional biography, Obama worked for a very brief time at Baskin-Robbins, dipping ice cream, when he was a teenager. Does that count? Does that prepare one for the presidency?

Apparently, “community organizer” is akin to professional rabble-rouser. Surely Honest Abe was more than acquainted with such troublemakers during his tenure in office. After all, Lincoln’s opponents, the Democrats, were pro-slavery and their sentiments led to the Civil War.

Now it’s alleged that President Trump’s predecessor, Obama, is actually leading an organized campaign of rabble-rousing against President Trump, running a  “shadow government” out of his new home in Washington DC–a plan designed to undermine President Trump and his administration. The media, it seems, are all on board.

President Lincoln had his own problems with the media, who considered him a rube. But also like President Trump, Lincoln was a master at manipulating the media. Like Trump, Lincoln had their number; he once said about newspapers (the media of the day):

 they lie and then they re-lie …

What would today’s snarky “journalists” say in response to that comment by President Lincoln? That he’s going to “war” with the media? Would they ridicule Lincoln for inventing his own words (re-lie), as they ridiculed then-president George W. Bush for coining the very apt word misunderestimated?

One thing President Trump does not have in common with Lincoln (at least not yet) is that Trump hasn’t issued an executive order demanding the imprisonment of journalists for publishing fake news:

Whereas there has been wickedly and traitorously printed and published this morning in the New York World and New York Journal of Commerce, newspapers printed and published in the city of New York, a false and spurious proclamation purporting to be signed by the President and to be countersigned by the Secretary of State, which publication is of a treasonable nature, designed to give aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States and to the rebels now at war against the Government and their aiders and abettors, you are therefore hereby commanded forthwith to arrest and imprison in any fort or military prison in your command the editors, proprietors, and publishers of the aforesaid newspapers, and all such persons as, after public notice has been given of the falsehood of said publication, print and publish the same with intent to give aid and comfort to the enemy; and you will hold the persons so arrested in close custody until they can be brought to trial before a military commission for their offense. You will also take possession by military force of the printing establishments of the New York World and Journal of Commerce, and hold the same until further orders, and prohibit any further publication therefrom.

A. LINCOLN.

How deliciously ironic! One gets the sense that Lincoln, if he were alive today, would be Tweeting up a storm. How fun to contemplate what the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals would make of revered President Lincoln’s executive order.

Please remember and honor President Abraham Lincoln today.

Happy Birthday to Republican President Abraham Lincoln!

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