“I can’t watch the news anymore – it’s just too depressing, and it makes me angry!”
Many people, including more than one family member, have told me exactly this in recent months.
And no wonder. America in the Age of Trump is way beyond “divided.” It’s angry and at war, with one side hysterically convinced the country is unjust and racist, and accusing everyone who sees things differently of being “deplorable” bigots, even fascists. Political violence has become the new normal as the left’s mania has grown both pathological and alarming, and nowhere more so than when focused on the president himself.
The left now daily calls President Donald Trump a “racist” and “white supremacist” and frequently compares him to Adolf Hitler. Polls show 93 percent of Democrats believe Trump is “tearing the country apart,” while that party’s leaders compete with one another to invent ever more creative grounds for impeachment – from empty allegations of “Russian collusion” to, more recently, Trump’s comments about the National Football League. One study reports almost a third of Americans – 29 percent – say today’s frenzied political climate is causing relationship problems, and the New York Daily News story “Trump presidency is destroying marriages across the country” reports, “There’s even a term for the marital mayhem between Trump acolytes and their liberal lovers: The ‘Trump Divorce.'”
In short, throughout most of 2017, dire news has dominated our media – and our consciousness.
But then came Hurricane Harvey, with its near-biblical level of flooding and epic destruction. And this mega-natural disaster swept in a flood of very different sorts of news reports – uplifting good news stories, hour after hour, day after day. Heroism, generosity, love and sacrifice, stories of neighbors helping neighbors and strangers alike, stories of private boats and canoes and jet skis rescuing the trapped in scenes reminiscent of the Dunkirk flotilla, stories of human kindness overflowing, of people who couldn’t care less about the race, gender, politics or religion of the person being rescued, nor of the rescuer. The nation seemed to be one big family again.
And so everyone was transported, however briefly, into the true America they love and honor, with scenes of extraordinary valor and charity that would be reprised shortly thereafter when Hurricane Irma brutally ravaged Florida.
During this brief respite from interminable bad news, we were daily treated to stirring, back-to-back stories like “Neighbors form human chain to help woman in labor wade through Houston floodwaters” and “Houston doctor canoes through floodwaters to perform surgery” and “Millionaire takes in 70 foster kids displaced by Hurricane Irma” and “Woman charters plane to rescue 300 animals affected by Irma.”
The same thing occurred in the aftermath of the horrendous Oct. 1 Las Vegas mass shooting. In the midst of sheer terror, shock, chaos and unthinkable carnage, not only that city’s first responders but off-duty cops attending the concert and countless other citizens instantly sprang into action, tending to the more than 500 injured and transporting many to nearby hospitals in their own vehicles, since ambulances were completely overwhelmed. Then they stood in line for hours to donate much-needed blood, contributed generously to a relief fund, and in so many other ways showed the world a remarkable display of neighbor-helping-neighbor in the face of great evil.
Of course, Americans know from hard experience that catastrophe and adversity bring the best out of many people. And having recently observed another 9/11 anniversary, everyone reverently remembered, as they do every year, the hundreds of valiant first responders who raced toward danger – and for many, to their death – in an epic, larger-than-life effort to save the lives of their countrymen trapped in burning towers in lower Manhattan.
Yet, to conclude from all of this that uncommon bravery and human kindness spring forth only in response to natural disasters and terror attacks would be wrong. The same American spirit we celebrate for helping during major crises is alive and well and manifest every single day in our nation; we just don’t tend to hear about it from the media, where “if it bleeds, it leads.”
Follow David Kupelian on Facebook.
The following recent stories typify the unsung heroes and “good Samaritans” that abound in America.
Good Samaritan kills woman’s attacker at Walmart: Two good Samaritans are credited with saving a woman’s life after she was attacked by two suspected carjackers who hit her over the head while she was putting her child into a car seat after leaving Walmart in Shawnee, Kansas.
An unarmed bystander, who rushed to the aid of the woman after hearing her screams, was shot multiple times by one of the suspects, according to police. Another good Samaritan saw what happened, got out of his car and shot one of the attackers dead.
A shopper who had just exited the store recorded the aftermath of the September 2016 shootings and posted the video to Facebook. Wendy Russell Macrorie said she was shopping for light bulbs and a tire for her son’s bicycle when people in the store began saying someone had been shot outside.
“So this is interesting. I am at Walmart, which I hate going to, and this is happening in front of my car,” Macrorie says in the video.
Paramedics could be seen tending to the injured good Samaritan as the body of a man wearing a beige shirt, blue jeans and white sneakers lay motionless in the foreground. The dead attacker was identified as John W. Simmons, III, 28, of Kansas City. Simmons reportedly had a protective order filed against him in 2013 by the mother of his child, according to Missouri court records.
Good Samaritans rescue trooper being beaten and choked: Michigan State Police Trooper Garry Guild was attempting to make a traffic stop on U.S. Hwy. 31 near the Indiana border last February, when the motorcycle sped away and led him on a chase. Riding an allegedly stolen motorcycle, Michael Barber sped off in an attempt to elude the Trooper, ending up crashing in a ditch.
When the trooper exited his vehicle to arrest Barber, the perpetrator’s brother, Travis Wise, showed up in another car, got out and ran toward the trooper to pull him off Barber, putting the trooper in a chokehold while Barber came back to attack him.
But just then, Jerry Burnham and his wife stopped their car – and then a second driver pulled up as well – and together the two good Samaritans overpowered the brothers and assisted Trooper Guild in subduing the two men and taking them into custody.
[jwplayer vI4UcIvB]
Good Samaritans save 89-year-old woman crossing train tracks: In Saddle Brook, New Jersey, last March, a couple of quick-thinking drivers saved an elderly woman from being hit by a train. The 89-year-old woman, walking with the aid of two canes, was attempting to cross the train tracks when, halfway through the crosswalk, the railroad crossing arms descended. In quick succession, two drivers saw what was happening and jumped out of their cars to help her, managing to get her out of the way just before the train passed.
“The red light started blinking and then just started going down,” said John Mango, one of the woman’s rescuers. “And even in the video, I can hear myself going ‘No!’ So then I just jumped out of the car and ran as quick as I can to try to get her out of the way.”
[jwplayer 82qr0Ypm]
Good Samaritan with gun kills man beating state trooper: An Arizona state trooper is alive today because a gun-toting stranger came to his rescue as an assailant smashed the trooper’s head into the pavement.
Coming upon the scene of a rollover crash on Interstate 10 in Tonopah, Arizona, last January, 27-year Arizona Department of Public Safety Trooper Edward Andersson had his hands full dealing with a woman who had been ejected in the accident, and who later died.
Trooper Andersson pulled over to investigate and used flares to block off several lanes of traffic, when suddenly he was ambushed by a man who shot him in the right shoulder. The attacker continued to assault the wounded officer, smashing his head into the highway.
Fortunately, a good Samaritan, traveling toward California with his wife, quickly pulled over to help.
Asking the trooper if he needed assistance, the officer replied, “Please help me.”
“That person retreats back to his vehicle, removes his own weapon from the vehicle, confronts the suspect, giving him orders to stop assaulting the officer,” recalled Arizona DPS Director Col. Frank Milstead.
When the attacker refused to stop beating the trooper, the good Samaritan fired several times, killing the suspect, then picked up the officer’s radio and asked for help.
“I don’t know if my trooper would be alive today without his assistance,” Milstead said, thanking the good Samaritan.
[jwplayer PHAcV0hk]
In addition, Milstead pointed out that the trooper had been “heroically” responding to a collision in the middle of major traffic while it was “pitch black” outside.
“Everybody wants to make this job seem easy, that anybody could do it,” he said. “Well, I will tell you that not everybody can do this job. You have to have a servant mentality, and you have to have a sense of confidence about yourself and your ability to react in a moment’s notice. It is the unknown that causes the problems with police and bad people.
“These are good men and women who go to church with you. They go to Costco at the same Costco you do. They’re your neighbors. The media tries to make us somehow different than everybody else in society. We’re not. We’re just the ones who are here to serve and protect you. We’re the ones who will give our lives to protect somebody who can’t protect themselves.”
Stories of heroic policemen seem conspicuously absent these days, especially considering the left’s hyperbolic allegation of rampant police brutality toward black people in America, an issue that has captivated the National Football League since millionaire athletes have taken to disrespecting the American flag and national anthem in protest. While the players cite the case of one St. Louis policeman acquitted after having shot to death a black drug dealer who had rammed the officer’s cruiser with his vehicle before leading him on an 80 mph chase, what about America’s other 750,000-plus sworn law enforcement officers in some 18,000 different police departments? Even if there is an occasional “bad cop” – which surely there is – what about the hundreds of thousands of good cops? Where are the stories about police who daily demonstrate courage, restraint, professionalism and even remarkable kindness? Where are those stories?
For example, did you hear about the Maryland cop who, responding to a call about a young mother accused of shoplifting two bundles of diapers for her 2-year-old, ended up actually purchasing the diapers for the mother?
That’s right. In July, Rookie Officer Bennett Johns of the Laurel Police Department responded to the call at a grocery store after being told a woman had stolen $15 worth of diapers. She told the officer that although she had purchased some groceries, she just didn’t have sufficient money to buy the diapers for her 2-year-old son. So the cop bought the diapers for her, out of his own funds.
“This mother was going out of her way and doing everything she can to provide for her kid and I can respect that,” Johns told local Fox 32 TV. “I can sympathize with that as well, so that is why I felt compelled to help the mother in purchasing the diapers for the kid.”
Police Chief Richard McLaughlin praised Johns, saying this was the exactly kind of community policing his department tries to do every day. “I’m very proud of my officers – all of my officers, and particularly this one. I think it speaks volumes that they are doing the right thing for the right reason when nobody is watching.”
Johns said the woman’s struggle reminded him of his own upbringing: “I see [the toddler] and I see myself growing up with a single mother and I want him to have a better life, too.”
America still has millions of people full of goodness and courage – qualities that daily show up in local stories most people never hear about. Stories like: “Girl, 6, opens lemonade stand to help pay off her classmates’ lunch debt” and “Mother of 5 donates kidney to single mother she met at church” and “8-year-old boy rescues 5 people from the sea in two days” and “Teen finds wallet stuffed with $1,500 in cash, returns it” “600 students surprised with backpacks full of supplies for new school year” and so on.
Follow David Kupelian on Facebook.
Of course, the best news of the last year is the election of Donald Trump as president, who on Nov. 8, 2016, did what none of the other 16 capable and honorable Republican presidential candidates could have pulled off: He won the election and denied the presidency to Hillary Clinton. He defeated the person anointed and predestined by the D.C. establishment in a rigged game where seemingly the entire Washington “swamp” – including not just the Democratic Party, the globalist elite, the entire press corps, the outgoing Obama administration and the “deep state,” but scandalously many Republicans as well – were arrayed in battle against him.
Why was electing Trump the best news of the year? In case you have forgotten, Hillary Clinton is not just a committed left-winger who would have continued Obama’s utterly disastrous foreign and domestic agenda. She’s also a criminal. Yes, criminal – you know, the kind of person who should be in prison. The Clinton crime currently being publicized – that in return for over a hundred million dollars she gave a fifth of America’s strategic uranium to an enemy state, Russia – is just one out of dozens of crimes spanning decades. And beyond her and her husband’s corruption and rank criminality, Hillary lies, literally, as easily as most people breathe.
One more thing: For a vivid reminder of the truly dark alternate reality we were spared – America under the rule of President Hillary Clinton – read my scariest article of the last year, “President Hillary: America’s Nurse Ratched,” in which I flesh out the chilling parallels between Hillary Clinton as president and Nurse Louise Rached, the notorious villain in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” The head administrative nurse in a mental hospital, Nurse Ratched is hands-down the craziest and most dangerous person in the whole “Cuckoo’s Nest.” That is the alternate future Americans were spared – thanks to a merciful God, and to the tireless and courageous efforts of Donald J. Trump.
Think about that the next time you’re offended by one of his early-morning tweets.
The preceding is excerpted from the current issue of Whistleblower magazine, “AND NOW THE GOOD NEWS.” A rare and much needed respite from the non-stop dire news from the front lines of the war over America’s future, it focuses entirely on genuinely good news, including a 5,000-plus word compilation of Trump’s accomplishments to date. As this issue of Whistleblower compellingly demonstrates, what truly makes America great is her goodness.
WHISTLEBLOWER IS NOW AVAILABLE ALSO IN STATE-OF-THE-ART DIGITAL FORM! SUBSCRIBE TO DIGITAL WHISTLEBLOWER HERE!
If you prefer, you may order a single copy of the October 2017 issue, “AND NOW THE GOOD NEWS
Drowning in bad news, Americans are revived by demonstrations of genuine courage and grace.” Or GET THE DIGITAL VERSION HERE!
