By Peter Funt

The nation’s newspapers are struggling mightily to find columnists who are willing to write nice things about Donald Trump.

That’s according to a report in the Washington Post, indicating that the regular stable of conservative pundits-from George Will to David Brooks-isn’t delivering enough pro-Trump op-eds. As it happens, I was just finishing a column praising the president-elect when the Post’s story came out.

Even before taking office, Donald Trump is sending a powerful signal to the nearly 63 million Americans who voted for him that he is, indeed, a bold thinker and an agent of change.

For instance, after pledging during the campaign to stop the exodus of companies to Mexico and other countries, Trump quickly saved roughly 800 jobs at a Carrier plant in Indiana. True, the number is lower than Trump first claimed, and granted, as the Indianapolis Star reports, as many as 2,100 Hoosiers are still about to lose their jobs, and yes, keeping Carrier happy will cost Indiana $7 million in tax incentives. But to dwell on such relatively minor concerns misses the larger point.

The president-elect has demonstrated that he can pick up the phone-something Mike Pence says he’ll do often-and get action from business chieftains looking for a bribe. The Carrier tax breaks will cost only $8,750 per job saved. Using that formula, every single one of of the nation’s full-time jobs could be saved, at least temporarily, for a mere $1.09 trillion.

Donald Trump heroically vowed to “drain the swamp” in Washington of enlightened leaders with meaningful government experience. What better way to make good on that promise than by selecting Ben Carson, a retired brain surgeon with no experience in government or in housing to be Secretary of Housing and Urban Development?

Trump deserves enormous credit for surrounding himself with individuals who will shun business-as-usual in Washington. Clearly that’s why he chose as chief strategist Steve Bannon, a true maverick who favors hate speech of all types including white nationalism, anti-semitism, immigrant-hatred and misogyny.

The president-elect has made clear that he will not become another political hack; rather, he will continue to hone the skills that made him so admired in business. He will actively manage his vast holdings, regardless of whether they conflict with his White House job. He even rebuffed the critics and media elite who urged him to give up his gig as executive producer of NBC’s “Celebrity Apprentice.”

Americans don’t like a candidate who says one thing to woo voters and then flip-flops once elected. Yes, Trump has conceded that the wall on the border with Mexico might be a more modest fence, and true, he’s apparently decided against mass deportations, and granted, he admires many of the best features in Obamacare, and, yes, he has recently deduced that climate change might be man’s doing, and, of course, he no longer intends to prosecute Hillary Clinton.

But when it comes to things average citizens really care about, Trump is proving to be a man of his word. He said he wouldn’t stop tweeting as president, and he hasn’t. He vowed to retain his children as top advisers, and he is following through.

Donald Trump is a leader with a vision of how America works. For example, a few days before Thanksgiving his website offered for sale a Christmas ornament in the form of a miniature Make America Great Again hat, brushed with real gold and selling for $149.

By holding rallies across the nation-even though there is nothing left to campaign for or about-Trump is already cementing his place in history.

As for the nation’s opinion writers, their unwillingness to recognize Donald Trump’s impressive accomplishments after such a short period of time reflects poorly on them and not on the true American hero they would seek to defame.

Making Sense by Michael Reagan

It’s clear President Obama —- despite the boos from Flyover Country — doesn’t plan to get off the national stage any time soon.

Unlike most former presidents, he’s not going to leave Washington next month and quietly live out the rest of his days in one of the many hoods he grew up in.

He could buy a big home in beautiful Hawaii, where the golf season never ends and Washington is 4,700 miles away. Or at least move back to Chicago.

That’s where he made his political bones, where he worked and taught law, and where he became the great candidate of hope and change.

Sure, Chicago’s war-torn streets are mean and deadly with gunfire.

But since Obama and his family will get lifetime protection from the Secret Service, there’ll always be half a dozen agents around to cover them whenever they have to go out to the corner store for a carton of milk.

Unfortunately, President Obama and his ego are not going anywhere, at least not until his youngest daughter finishes school.

He’ll stay in Washington, close to his friends in the mainstream media, where he can be the always available commander in chief of the Democrats’ raggedy Trump Resistance Movement.

Obama is already rehearsing his new role as America’s Other President.

Recently he made headlines by boasting he could have beaten Donald Trump and been reelected to a third term by running again on his message of hope and change.

Too bad the Constitution got in the way. But Obama’s big ego can’t be limited by the Constitution — or reality.

He still doesn’t get it it:Trump’s victory was not just a punishing defeat of Hillary Clinton and her bad political ideas.

A majority of voters in states not called New York and California clearly didn’t want another four years of Obama or his amateur act.

In 1988, when George H.W. Bush was elected, he was effectively serving Ronald Reagan’s third term. Bush took advantage of the successes my father had in the 1980s.

Hillary was her own worst enemy, but she lost in large part because of Obama’s eight years of failure. Everything President Obama touched at home and abroad he left in wreckage.

During his reign the Democrat Party shriveled in power in Washington and lost more than a thousand legislative seats in state capitals across the country.

The alleged Obama economic recovery was so feeble it’s nearly invisible.

Except for the oil and gas fracking booms in Texas and Pennsylvania, which happened in spite of the Obama administration’s green energy policies, does anyone know a place where the American economy is prospering?

The wealthy counties around Washington, D.C. —- made rich by budget-busting spending spree of Obama’s federal government — don’t count.

Obama’s long string of foreign policy fiascos is even more shameful —- Iraq, Egypt, Libya and Syria. His legacies are ISIS and his Iran nuke deal, which is a ticking time bomb that a future president will have to stop.

Meanwhile, before he leaves office, Obama is still causing as much trouble as he can.

He’s not merely doing the usual innocentthings — creating a few new national monuments out West or pardoning a few hundred nonviolent drug offenders.

The future ex-president is still playing games with Vladimir Putin over Russian’s alleged interference in the presidential election and playing with fire in the Middle East.

He and his hacks at the State Department have been caught orchestrating a United Nations resolution condemning Israel’s plans to build new settlements in East Jerusalem.

Not vetoing the anti-Israel vote in the UN was a public bitch-slapping of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu by a petty American president.

Netanyahu is lucky. He won’t have to wait long for his pal Donald to kiss and make up with him and begin treating his country like the valued friend it is.

But President Trump and the rest of us will be dealing with all the messes “Third Term” Obama has made for a long time.

“The Volunteer Lawyer Program of Southwestern Indiana is pleased that local attorney and former Evansville Bar Association President Scott Wylie will become the organization’s new full-time staff director, referred to as a Plan Administrator by the court system, in mid-January,” announced VLP Board Co-Chair Judge Greg Smith of the Daviess County Circuit Court.  He will assume the role after nearly a decade as a board member and then Director of the Vanderburgh Community Foundation.

VLP provides indigent legal services and coordinates attorney pro bono efforts in the eleven counties around the Evansville metropolitan area.  Wylie has been involved with VLP since 2007.  This will be the first time the organization has had a full-time director.  “We are delighted that Scott will be heading our efforts going forward.  He is a national leader in the delivery of civil legal aid services and will bring decades of experience to this role,” said VLP Board Co-Chair Vanderburgh County Magistrate Sheila Corcoran.

In addition to numerous local nonprofit boards, Wylie serves on the Board of Directors of the Indiana Bar Foundation, Indiana Legal Services, the Indiana Philanthropy Alliance, and he was recently appointed by Indiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Loretta Rush to serve on the inaugural Coalition for Court Access.  Before returning to the Evansville Area in 2005, Wylie served as President of the California Bar Foundation and as a Vice President of the California Bar Association, the largest state bar in the nation.

Wylie will follow retiring Plan Administrator Beverly Corn, who recently received the Randall T. Shepard Award for Pro Bono Service for her years of service to the agency.

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FOOTNOTES: Todays “READERS POLL” question is :How do you rank the Vanderburgh County Councils job performance in 2016?

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