Month: January 2018

So January is already half over, and especially after such a great December, the new year is off to a bit of a rough start.   I started January 1^st with a New Year’s resolution: to be more patient with people who disagree with me.  (In other words, with those who are wildly, unforgivably wrong about everything.)(P.S. This may not be my easiest resolution to keep.)

But then God tested my resolve right out of the box, by confronting me with several aggravating stories.

For example, I heard that the northeast was going to be hit with a “bomb cyclone,” and my first thought was naturally, “Holy Cow, what is Rocket Man up to now?  Last I heard, he was firing missiles toward Japan, half of which didn’t make it to their target.  And now he’s developed a Bomb Cyclone that can reach our east coast?!  Where are we with our own Bomb Cyclone technology?  The last cool thing we came up with was Stealth Fighters, and now we get beaten to the punch by that roly poly little guy who was barely able to outwit Hans Blix in that puppet movie?”

Then, of course, I learned that “Bomb Cyclone” means “snow storm.”

Okay then.   What is it with our populace and storm names?  Several years ago I was visiting family in Illinois in the winter – I went there specifically to see a little snow – and I got there a day before a heavy snowfall.  But the news media didn’t call it a heavy snowfall.

Half of them called it, “Snowpacalypse” and the other half called it, “Snow-mageddon.”   (I guess “Snowlocaust” was too soon?)

I’m not sure what it says about a society when citizens start to over-dramatize routine, seasonal weather, but it’s not good.

 

Also at the beginning of this year, I experienced a whirlwind round of what Ben Shapiro calls “good Trump, bad Trump.”   The good was very good: in one tweet, he mentioned that he won the presidency “on the first try,” and – in what has to be my favorite phrase of the new year so far – that he was “a very stable genius.”

How can you not love that?  Yes, it’s cartoonishly self-aggrandizing and even adolescent.  But he’s fighting with people who give adolescence a bad name, and are so dishonest and corrupt that it is one of the greatest pleasures of public life to watch them be trolled into a state of frothing, irrational hatred.   And boy, did “stable genius” stick in their craw.

On the other hand, as CO readers know, I’ve got mixed feelings about our president.   After one needlessly self-destructive tweet or another (that judge can’t give me a fair shot because he’s a Mexican, I like war heroes who didn’t get captured, etc.), I begin to despair at the damage that he might do to the GOP brand (even though I care a lot more about defending conservatism than the GOP brand that has already been regularly undermined by establishment squishes), and to his ability to advance a conservative agenda.

But then there are the other tweets, and their abrasive dose of much-needed reality: the UN is a bunch of kleptocrats and we’re going to insist that they shape up or we’re holding back our money (yes!), the same goes for the Palestinians (yes!!), Crooked Hillary this (Yes!), Pocohontas that (YES!!), we’re going to have a big, beautiful tax cut that also kills the Obamacare mandate (Meg Ryan in the “When Harry Met Sally” faked-O scene YESSS!!!)

The best thing that conservatives have going for them – and what I think has helped to neutralize what otherwise might be more damaging errors on Trump’s part – is the Democrats’ idiotic, dishonest insistence on blowing everything Trump does so far out of proportion that it often ends up helping him.

Exhibit A: The “Haiti, El Salvador and much of Africa are “s—holes” kerfuffle.  That was not a smart comment, and it obscured the valid underlying point (it’s self-destructive to admit people from dysfunctional countries over people from more functional, assimilation-friendly ones) in a particularly unhelpful way.

And yes, I know that we are relying mainly on Dick Durbin’s word that Trump said it.  (And by the way, have you ever heard anyone calling Durbin “Richard?”  Of course you haven’t.  His first name is as fitting as Anthony Weiner’s last name.)  Lindsay Lohan also said Trump said it.  Oops – Graham.  Lindsay Graham.

But as sleazy as those two are, my instinct is that Trump did say it.

Still, the bonehead Dems are mishandling the opportunity by turning their outrage meter to 27, which I think will backfire on them for 2 reasons:

1. It’s pretty rich to watch these hypocrites act offended by either the vulgarity or the insult inherent in the statement. When Obama was signing his signal accomplishment of the Hindenburg-Titanic-New Coke-Edsel-Solyndra-Dumpster-fire Act (AKA, Obamacare) into law, Joe Biden called it “A big f**king deal.” Obama himself called Libya a “s**tshow,” and he referred to the democratically elected leader of our only consistent ally in the Middle East (Netanyahu) as “chickens—t.”  In both instances, the MSM yawned.  So I don’t think that vulgarity is the issue.

Maybe it was the insulting nature of the comment that is the problem?  But when Dick (no one ever calls him “Richard”) Durbin compared US troops in Iraq to Nazis and the thugs working for Stalin and Pol Pot, the MSM ignored it.  When Michelle Obama said that she’d never been proud of her country until her husband was elected, the MSM ignored it.  When Barack said that his mom’s racism was because she was “a typical white person,” the MSM went nuts, excoriating him for his blatant racist stereotyping.

Just kidding! They ignored it.

All of those insults – directed at Americans – were fine. But Trump’s comment is beyond the pale!  It’s S—hole-ageddon!  The S—pocalypse is upon us!

2. As they say in the law, truth is an absolute defense. And what Trump said – as insultingly phrased as it was – is true.

I got a kick out of watching several MSM figures tying themselves into verbal and metaphysical knots, trying to keep a straight face while they insisted that everything is just hunky dory in Haiti and Africa.

Yes.  That’s why Nancy Pelosi has a palatial winter home in Port au Prince, and Elizabeth Warren summers in Ghana, and Obama is building his hideous presidential library in Zimbabwe.   Because a long life expectancy isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and functioning sewer systems are over-rated, and an intermittent electrical supply is charming.  Also, medical care that doesn’t involve diagnostically reading chicken entrails, and housing constructed out of something other than straw and the fecal matter of animals were both invented by dead white males.   So, yuck.

Anyway, perhaps the best example so far this year of how the Dems are driving non-committed citizens toward Trump is their pathetic performance when they interrogated Trump’s doctor for an hour on January 16^th.  (Am I conflating the loony Dem left with the MSM reporters at that presser?  Yes.  Yes I am.)

I don’t know how anyone who doesn’t already despise Trump could watch that debacle and end up feeling anything but sympathy for him, and an overwhelming desire to kick the closest reporter in the groin.  In fact, I’ve just been handed a bulletin confirming that that motley collection of “reporters” constituted the highest collective Simpson Face Punchability Index (SFPI©) ever assembled in one room at one time.

The travesty started with the doc stating that Trump’s health is “excellent” and that he has “no mental or cognitive issue whatsoever.”  For a normal bunch of humans, that would elicit a “no story here” reaction, followed by a few perfunctory follow-up questions (“How about that cholesterol, though?”) and an early break for lunch.

But for this bunch of hacks, it was the opening salvo to a 21-gun salute of stupid.

They spent an hour asking variations on the same few questions (“But he might be crazy, right?” “Can you definitively rule out that he’s nuts?” “How many chicken nuggets is Trump short of a Happy Meal?” “But what about the dozens of leftist hack ‘doctors’ who have diagnosed Trump as a paranoid schizophrenic without ever having been in a room with him?)

The “mental acuity” test was a highlight of the circus.  The reporters thought it was a trap they were going to spring on Trump, but it turned out to be a rake that kept whapping them in their empty, coconut skulls.

Usually, I’m very content with my lot in life.  I married up, I’ve got two world-class daughters, I’ve got a good career and a small real estate empire, and the strength of 10 men, because my heart is pure.  My mental acuity is off the charts, and I own a dog who is the envy of the entire canine community.

But I think I would give all of my earthly possessions to have been in that doctor’s place at that press conference:

Reporter: “Why did you give him a mental acuity test in the first place?  Were you worried about that?”

Doctor Me: “Thanks for that inane question, you dolt.  Actually, he asked to be given that test.”

Reporter: “Is that because he is worried about his mental acuity?”

Me: “No.  It’s because he knows that a bunch of you soul-less hacks have been smearing him as mentally unfit.”

Reporter: “So how did he do?”

Me: “He got a 30.”

Reporter (beside himself with glee): “30%?!  That’s awful!”

Me: “Not 30%, you moron.  30 out of 30.  Put your shoes back on, Acosta – that’s 100%.”

Reporter:  “But this test doesn’t mean that he’s psychologically healthy, necessarily.  It only measures acuity, right?”

Me: “You can’t even spell ‘acuity,’ can you?”

Reporter:  “A – Q –”

Me (slapping my forehead):  “Idiots.”

Reporter: “Hey!  These are legitimate questions.  The people have a right to know about their leaders’ health!  We’re just doing our jobs!”

Me: “Like when you ignored Hillary Clinton’s bi-weekly near-death experiences during the campaign?  She had to wear Coke-bottle Mr. Magoo glasses for a while to help prevent seizures, and you never mentioned it.  She collapsed into the side of a limo like the sniper victim in Saving Private Ryan, and you ignored it.”

Reporter: “That wasn’t—”

Me: “During every other speech she went on a coughing jag like a chain-smoking octogenarian in a TB ward!  Nancy Pelosi slurs her speech like Chelsea Handler on the last night of Mardi Gras, and Frederica Wilson’s hat collection is clear prima facie evidence that she’s clinically insane!  And you’ve never asked any questions about any of them, have you?”

Reporter: “But—”

Me: “Shut up.  We’ve administered that same mental acuity test to some of the congressional Democrats.  Would you like to know how they scored?”

Reporter (in a wee, small voice): “no.”

Me (flourishing a print-out):  “Chuck Schumer got half a point.”  (looking over my glasses at the reporters)  “You get one point for spelling your name correctly.”

Reporters: “I don’t think we—”

Me: “The rest of the Democrat leadership scores didn’t make any sense to us, so we consulted a variety of experts.  Finally, a zoologist recognized that their calibrated scores were equivalent to those of several animal species.”

Reporters: “Oh, come on!”

Me: “According to these results, Elizabeth Warren has the mental acuity of a platypus.  And not the brightest of the platypi, either.  Fourth quintile platypus at best.  The kind of platypus that – if platypi had developed a tiered university system – would be trying to get her gen ed requirements out of the way at a community college with the hope of transferring to a weak state school.   Also, little known fact: the platypus is not a Native American species, even though the slower ones pretend that they are.”  (We must never stop mocking Elizabeth Warren.)

Reporters: “We don’t see what this has to do with—”

Me: “Nancy Pelosi?” (pause for effect)  “Third quintile racoon.”  (uncomfortable murmuring in the room)  “Dick Durbin?”  (no one will meet my eyes)  “Second quintile marmoset.”

Reporters: “What’s a—”

Me: “We had to re-test Frederica Wilson twice, before someone found a botanist who confirmed that she has the acuity of an unspecified deciduous tree.”

Reporters (after a long, shamed silence): “But still, what about Trump’s weight?  That’s not good, is it?”

Me: “That’s it.  Everybody line up.  I’m going to give a Three Stooges’ style sequential face-slap to the whole rotten lot of you!”

And, scene.

So… my new year’s resolution is not going so well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In September, Stately Simpson Manor was threatened by a hurricane. (We came through almost unscathed, after a pretty stressful 48 hours or so.) But the nasty weather made me think of global warming, which made me think of the instructive (and hilarious) failure of GW doomsayers. I recounted two recent examples:

“Exhibit A. In July of 2016, a bunch of global warming alarmists – “adventurers, sailors, pilots and climate scientists” — went on what was supposed to be a two-month trip around the North Pole. According to their website, their mission was to demonstrate, “that the Arctic sea ice coverage shrinks back so far now in the summer months that sea that was permanently locked up now can allow passage through.”

Cue the great South Park sketch: “Aannnndddd, they’re stuck.”

An article in Real Climate Science summed up their situation in this quote, which I am not making up: “They are currently stuck in Murmansk, Russia because there is too much ice blocking the North East passage the team said didn’t exist in summer months.”

I know what you’re thinking. If only they had had something other than shaky computer climate models and bong-hit-induced deep thoughts to guide them! If only there had been some historical precedent from which they could have learned!
Which brings me to…

Exhibit B. Two and a half year earlier, a group of scientists, their assistants and “adventure tourists” were sailing in the Antarctic, also intending to document the ravages wrought by our horrendous global warming crisis.

By the way, what’s with these “adventurers” and their choice of adventures?! I was never a particularly adventurous young man. But when I imagined going on an adventure, I thought of scenarios like, “So I’m in a Turkish bath in Monte Carlo, with two gorgeous Bosnian co-eds, the American ambassador to Greece, and Sean Connery, and we’re all kicking around the idea of knocking over a casino.”

Do you know what I was NOT thinking of? “So I’m stranded on an ice-encrusted trawler near Murmansk, with my extremities blackened by frost bite while a blocky Women’s Studies prof explains how global warming often manifests itself by freezing people to death.”

But back to our story. This adventuresome crew was sailing on a Russian-operated ship called the Mika Brezhinski. (Just kidding. It was actually called the Akademik Shokalskiy. But when I think of things that are thick and sluggish and ineffectual, I can’t help but think of Mrs. Morning Joe.)

Anyway, our intrepid crew on the Mika had set sail from Australia at the end of November (i.e. summer in Australia), bound for Antarctica, where they expected to lounge about in beachwear, demonstrating how our SUVS are boiling our precious environment, or something.

Guess what happened to their ship?

If you guessed that the ocean got too hot and they were all scalded to death, you are not paying attention.

In fact, it got stuck in the ice that they were shocked to find.

But wait! There’s more hilarity.

While the global warming alarmists were spending Christmas day stuck in the ice, mourning the death of Gaia instead of celebrating the birth of Christ, they had high hopes. Because the cavalry was on the way, in the form of a Chinese ice-breaking ship called the “Snow Dragon.”

Until the Snow Dragon got stuck. In the ice. The ice that it was designed to break.
But never fear, because a second Chinese ice breaker named the Aurora Australis was on its way. (And by the way, if that’s not a good stripper name, I don’t know what is. “Gentlemen, welcome to the main stage… Aurora Australis! She’s from Down Under, and she just wants to break… your… ice. Make it rain, make it snow, it’s all the same to Aurorrrrrrra.”) This ship was bigger and more powerful than the Snow Dragon, so it would make short work of the–

Annnnnddddd, it’s stuck.

Actually it didn’t get stuck. But the captain had to turn back from rescue attempts, because his ship was on the verge of getting icebound, too.

Oh, Chinese icebreaker boats. You had one job…

Anyway, the global alarmist knuckleheads were eventually – tragically – rescued.
And two and a half years later, the next group sailed for sunny Murmansk, undeterred.”

In October, Florida Congressdope Frederica Wilson briefly got herself into the news, by attacking Trump for allegedly bungling a condolence call to an army widow:
“I’ve spent the last 15 minutes – which I will never get back – looking through the debris field of Wilson’s political record. And from that I learned two things: 1. She is a far-left loon whose presence in Congress speaks very poorly of the constituents who elected her. And 2. She apparently inherited an extensive hat collection from a wealthy cowboy pimp.
I’m guessing that her parents were really hoping for a boy who would one day drive cattle from Topeka to Dallas. To assuage their disappointment when she was born, they nailed her with the name “Frederica,” stuck a ridiculous baby cowboy hat on her empty head, and foisted her upon the voters of Florida’s beleaguered 24th District.

Seriously, look at her hat pictures. In fact, pull up a split screen of a few lovely ladies in the reproductive organ headgear from January’s march, alongside one of Wilson’s garish hats. If you could look up the phrase “opposite of a thinking cap” in the dictionary, those are the pictures you would see.

If there is no such cliché as “a half-gallon brain in a 10-gallon hat,” I would like to invent that now, and apply it to Wilson.

But not satisfied with eavesdropping on a condolence call and then trying to score political points off of it, she steered into the stupid skid, releasing this tweet: “ I still stand by my account of the call b/t @realDonaldTrump and Myesha Johnson. That is her name, Mr. Trump. Not “the woman” or “the wife.”

Hilariously enough, the mother’s name is actually “Myeshia” Johnson.

I am not making that up. In a snotty, three-sentence tweet meant to excoriate Trump for not using the grieving widow’s proper name, Hopalong Bonehead GOT THE GRIEVING WIDOW’S NAME WRONG.

Ugh. To complete the empty barrel trifecta, Wilson gave an interview afterwards, an excerpt of which appeared on Bret Baier’s show. Wilson said, “Let me tell you what my mother told me when I was little. She said, ‘The dog can bark at the moon all night long. But it doesn’t become an issue until the moon barks back.’”

Cut back to Bret, wearing the same confused expression that my Aussie shepherd gets when I try to explain to her that Frederica Wilson is in congress.

By the way, I would bet my life that Cassie ‘the Wonder Dog’ Simpson would make a much better representative than Wilson. She doesn’t have much foreign policy experience, but she is a strict constructionist on Supreme Court nominees, and she is very tough on crime, having protected our house from burglars for over three years now.

Plus she’s up to date on all of her shots – which, judging from that little barking moon story, I’m guessing that Frederica Wilson is not.

If it didn’t mean moving to the 24th district, I would create an exploratory committee tomorrow. The first ad would feature my beautiful girl at attention – her one brown eye and one blue eye staring soulfully into the camera — behind a chewed-up, bedazzled cowboy hat, with the slogan, “Cassie Simpson – Who’s a good girl? Not Frederica Wilson!” Tagline: “My name is Cassie Simpson, and I approve this—WOOF!”

As fall turned to winter, the unfolding Perv-alanche (hat-tip to an astute CO reader) sex scandal story gave me hours of endless fun. (Although thanks Roy Moore, for giving the hypocritical left their own talking point during this mess.)

“After watching the reports of the rampant sexual misbehavior of our moral superiors in Hollywood and the corporate and political worlds, I’ve come to realize that I might be the only adult male who HASN’T been routinely groping my colleagues and subordinates over the last 30 years. (No one in HR told me that that was an option. And now that I’m deliriously happily married, my wife informs me that it is still not an option. So, great timing on my part.)

First, thanks again, prominent celebrities and high-profile social leaders, for giving us lowly deplorables such a smorgasbord of world-class examples of hypocrisy we can use to instruct our children on how NOT to live.

To my hypothetical son: “This is a picture of Kevin Spacey. If he invites you to his house for a sleep over, NOPE!”

To my very real daughters: “Girls, do you see this picture? What’s that? No, that is not an unshaven, overweight Gollum. Well, it is. But it‘s also Harvey Weinstein. If he should invite you to discuss an acting role over lunch, you can only meet him in a public place. And your mother has sewn you a burka, which I have modified with an unbroken coil of wire connected to a car battery, which will function as your own personal electric fence. Also, here is some bear mace, and a taser. And your krav maga instructor will be here at 2:00.”

Perhaps my favorite example of “left-on-left” crime was the picture of Ellen Degeneres drooling over Katy Perry’s chest from about 4 inches away, which she wisely sent out as a tweet with the hilarious caption, “Happy Birthday, @KatyPerry! Time to bring out the big balloons!”

(By the way, I am so non-tech savvy that I have never thought about getting an “@” tag for myself. But if it’s not taken, I wanted to request “@hilariousgenius.” One CO reader called me that last year, and I really like the sound of it. Wait, this just in: my 15-year-old tells me that I have to be on Twitter or Instagram to actually use that, and I don’t know what either of those are. So I guess I can’t just go to work and request that everyone address me as “@hilariousgenius?” Fine. Forget I said anything.)

Anyway, pointing out double standards like Ellen Degeneres’ is way too easy. It’s not even like shooting fish in a barrel. It’s like shooting a large fish in a one-gallon bucket, if the fish had the lowest IQ in his school (HA!), and he was sleeping in the bucket. And I had a new shotgun that came with a five-year no-miss fish-shooting warranty.

And yet, I’m going to point out that double standard anyway. Can you imagine if a male tv-show host had posed with Katy Perry, staring deeply into her cleavage, accompanied by a double-entendre so tired that it would have embarrassed even creepy old Hugh Hefner? How do you think that guy’s career would be going right about now?

Because I am nothing if not a strict empiricist (I originally wrote “rigid empiricist,” but in this context, I took the high road with a tasteful word choice edit. You’re welcome.), I put this hypothetical to the test. Yesterday, for Halloween, I went to my office dressed as a combination of Harvey Weinstein, Ben Affleck, Kevin Spacey and Ellen Degeneres. (It was a very complicated costume, and no one got it.)

As soon as I came in the door, I slapped my secretary on the behind, took a selfie while motorboating an intern in a low-cut top, and then wedgied a row of sales reps who had dressed up as Little Bo Peep, slutty nurse and Lady Gaga, respectively.

So I’m unemployed, and my trial date is December 12th.”

And then it was December, and I came across a story from the always-heartwarming Middle East:

“In other peace-on-earth-related news, have you heard about what happened to the Miss Iraq contestant at the Miss Universe International Beauty Pageant? (And yes, that is a thing. And yes, there is a Miss Iraq. And no, she does not have a Saddam-esque mustache, you xenophobic jokesters.)

Well, she took a picture with Miss Israel, and put it on Instagram, captioned, “Peace and love from Miss Iraq and Miss Israel.” (By the way, Google that picture. If you say that your religion requires that either of those young women should be forced to wear beekeeper outfits whenever they go outdoors, I am going to violate CO’s rules about no profanity on this site.)

When the citizens of Iraq saw that photo, they said, “What a sweet sentiment. We love to see Miss Iraq and Miss Israel getting along so well together. We can learn a lot from them.”

And they all lived happily ever after. The end.

HA! That is not what happened at all. In fact, here’s what happened, according to a story posted on MSN (I know, but still): “Miss Iraq, Sarah Idan, and her family had to flee their homeland after receiving death threats over a photo she posted online last month.”

I know, pick your jaw up off the floor. You’re probably thinking, “Maybe the photo she posted was of her being baptized in a Christian church. Or of her wearing an “Islam Sucks” t-shirt. Or of her chowing down on a big pork sandwich.”

Nope. It was the “peace and love” pic that caused her co-religionists to get their chadors in a bunch.

Her hot Israeli friend in the picture explained that in Miss Iraq’s home country, “people made threats against her and her family that if she didn’t return home and take down the photos, they would remove her title, that they would kill her.”

So remember this when you gather around your Christmas tree or Hannukah bush or festivus pole: we can never judge, and no culture is better than any other.”

But the rest of December was pretty great. Trump and the GOP passed a tax cut which did everything but cure cancer. (In addition to cutting corporate and personal tax rates, it killed the Obamacare mandate, and trimmed the deductability of state income tax, which should bring well-deserved tax payer outrage down on the heads of the blue state pols who have been financially punishing their citizens for years.)

The economic numbers and growth stats came in that confirmed how much better an economy does when politicians encourage (instead of punishing) working and earning. (Shazam!) For the year, Trump has cut something like 22 federal regulations for every new one imposed, EPA functionaries are retiring like they’ve suddenly developed allergies to sloth and malevolence, and Nikki Haley is bringing hot, hot justice to the scoundrels at the UN.

There are definitely storm clouds on the horizon as we head into mid-term season in 2018, but 2017 was a better year than many of us had reason to expect when it began.

May was something of a down month politically, but I still found a few things to amuse myself, starting with a great Planned Parenthood faux pas:

“Planned Parenthood tried to do a little PR work recently, as they are wont to do.  But they picked an odd holiday to make their appeal: Mother’s Day.  The fine folks at PP are oblivious to many things – basic biology, ethics, maternal instinct, irony – but does no one down there realize the value of timing?  Would they suggest wishing all of your British friends a Happy Independence Day?  Or all of your friends who are struggling with alcoholism a Happy St. Patrick’s Day?  Or all of your ISIS friends a joyous Yom Kippur?

The head of PP sent out a tweet that began, “Nothing says, ‘I love you, Mom!” like…”  And I stopped reading.  Because all I could think of was “…a child.”  Oops.

Later in May, the Democrats had a national convention in CA, and hilarity (predictably) ensued:

“No matter what kind of new trouble Trump or the GOP can get themselves into, and no matter what kinds of wild exaggerations the MSM can bring to bear on said trouble, there is one political constant that we can all count on: the Democrat party (new slogan: “When they go low, we go much, much lower.”) is behaving horribly.   If it’s not Carlos Danger sexting the toddlers at a local daycare, or Nancy Pelosi losing her place three times per cue card, or DNC lead vulgarian Tom Perez swearing like he’s just got the lead in a Tarantino movie, it’s the California Democrat state convention.

On Saturday, 20 May, some of the sophisticated convention attendees began a rousing chant of “F*** Donald Trump.”  And because those sweet-tempered lefties are always sensitive about not excluding the differently abled, they accompanied the chant with a visual aid for the hearing impaired, in the form of upraised arms and extended middle fingers.   (Do you know the most calorie-burning and yet easiest gig ever for a sign language interpreter?  Translating for the CA Democratic convention.  You start out with the gestures for, “Hello, Sacramento!”  Then you paste a wild-eyed look on your face and flip the bird maniacally for 13 minutes.  Then you sign, “Here’s Maxine Waters,” and circle your temple with one forefinger in the universal symbol for “cuckoo” for 11 minutes. Then you introduce Tom Perez, and alternate between bird flipping and pelvic thrusting and grabbing your crotch like vintage Michael Jackson and sneering like Sid Vicious at a meeting with the Pope.  Then you hammer your check and go home and take a long, hot shower.  But you can never wash off the shame.)

I know what you’re thinking: well, you can’t blame the state party if a tiny group of trouble-makers in the back of the room gets picked up on a hot mike, and inadvertently exposes what they’d meant to express only privately.

Au contraire, mon frere.   This wasn’t a handful of stoners on the fringes.  This was a huge group of attendees front and center, during the convention in their most important state, being lead in the chant by outgoing CA Democrat chairman John Burton, with elected officials on the stage laughing along with the high-brow bon mots.

And how did the AP write up the story of the profane chant, you are probably not wondering, because you already know?  That’s right:  “In a sign of the vigor of the party’s distaste for the president….”  Ah yes.  “Vigor” and “distaste.”  The report does manage to admit that Burton is “known for his blunt and profane manner.”  You don’t say.

Stay classy, Sacramento.

On the last day of May, I was cheered by the news that another leading jihadi bit the dust:

In happy international news, an ISIS chief cleric who called himself “the Grand Mufti” – probably because “Grand Kleagle” and “Exalted Cyclops” were already taken, and his real name was Turki al-Bin’ali – caught an air strike in the face on May 31st.

I would like to renew my call that instead of a respectful moment of silence, we greet this kind of news with a few moments of raucous and celebratory noise.  I’m recommending a garage band playing the first 45 seconds of the Beastie Boy’s “Sabotage,” followed by the open to “Stranglehold,” followed by my dad’s 1972 Gran Torino with the pedal floored, and then a wood chipper working through a cedar tree.

(“Hey Martin,” I can almost hear you asking, “what dad joke did you tell your 15-year-old-daughter about this international incident that made her roll her eyes and slap her forehead and mimic the dry heaves?”  Since you asked so nicely: That’s one Turki who didn’t make it until Thanksgiving.  Boom!)

One news source called al-Bin’Kaboom “one of the most visible ISIS preachers.”  Am I the only one who sees the irony in a group who forces their women to wear tarps in public being done in because their Grand Mufti was too visible?

I am?  Fine.  Moving on…”

In June, Hillary made the media rounds with her various theories on why she lost the election.  “Many commentators have noted that by now Hillary has blamed nearly every person or group on earth for her sweet, sweet loss.  (Piggish men, insufficiently feminist women, Russians and Comey and Bernie, etc.)  But this time she added a new culprit: Macedonians.  Let’s savor her schadenfreude-tastic quote:

“So this was different because [the Russians] went public, and they were conveying this weaponized information and the content of it, and they were running, y’know there’s all these stories, about y’know, guys over in Macedonia who are running these fake news sites, and you know I’ve seen them now, and you sit there and it looks like you know sort of low level CNN operation, or a fake newspaper.”

First, there’s no such thing as a “low level CNN operation.”  You cannot get lower than CNN without being subterranean.  CNN is a low level CNN operation.

Second, “weaponized information?”  You mean, facts and things that you and your creepy circle of co-conspirators wrote and said, right?  They released things that you said and did, and you’re calling that “weaponized information?”  Ohhh-kay.

Third, something goes horribly wrong, and you look around for scapegoats.  I get it.  Blaming others is always tempting, and often entertaining.  For example, when my oldest daughter was toddling around at about age 2, I taught her a verbal trick.  In the middle of any conversation, I could point to her and ask, “Who do we blame for that?”  And she’d look at me with her enormous brown eyes and say, “The Democrats.”  That’s the kind of Norman Rockwell moment that makes the diaper changing and future college expenses all worthwhile.   And my lefty in-laws were mortified.  So, win-win.

Anyway, enough about my fantastic parenting tips.  We were discussing Hillary’s blame game.

There’s hilarious, well-adjusted Simpson-style blaming, and then there’s grim, sociopathic Hillary-style blaming.  But she outdoes even herself when she uncovers the sinister Macedonian cabal.

Move over, Jews and Global Warming, because there’s a new scapegoat in town.  And it’s the Macedonian Menace.  (If this were an old timey radio show, I’d insert a scary organ sting here.) (That reminds me: Anthony Weiner.  Boom!) (Admit it: you read “insert scary organ sting” and you beat me to the Weiner reference.  You’ve officially sunk to my level, God help you.)

By now, it’s easier to identify groups whom Hillary HASN’T blamed for her loss.   By my count, that list comes to:  the ancient Etruscans, the Hapsburg Empire, the Hottentots, and Hillary Clinton.

One other note: Did you hear what kind of conference she was speaking to?  A tech conference.   Hillary Clinton, who set up a server in her back bedroom — using open-source software, with a hardline strung out her window and across country to the Russian embassy, installed by Boris and Natasha Badanov — was invited to speak at a tech conference.

Were there no Amish people available?”

One other great event also happened in June: Pajama Boy Jon Ossoff – the Democrats’ “Great Gender-Non-Conforming Hope” lost in Georgia, after having soaked up millions in donor dollars.  And again, because I am not a better person, I derived great glee:

“A couple of weeks before the election, when several polls showed Ossoff up around 7 points, one lefty blog commenter crowed that June 20th was going to be like Sherman marching through Georgia again.

Yes.  Exactly like that.

Except if this time, when Sherman sat astride his horse at the head of the Union column and gave the command to begin the march, his horse immediately slipped in the mud and broke a leg, pitching Sherman into a puddle.  And in the puddle was a deadly snake, which then bit Sherman in the face, causing him to flail about in death throes that then spooked all of the other horses, causing them to charge off in all directions, throwing their riders and trampling infantrymen.  And sending an ammo wagon full of black powder careening into a mess tent, where a cooking fire set off a gigantic explosion which killed all the Union soldiers.  And then Robert E. Lee marched on Washington unopposed, conquered it, and renamed it Jefferson Davis-ville, and the Democrats won the Civil War, and so we’d still have slavery, which they were quite fond of.

Because for the Dems, June 20th was just like that.  Only much, MUCH funnier.”

I also mentioned that the Dems shouldn’t have been so shocked at Ossoff’s loss, pointing out that I predicted that back in April, when I wrote that after not winning a majority in the primary, “he’ll likely lose to the GOP nominee in June.”

“Did you get that?  “He’ll likely lose,” said Mr. Non-Expert, Non-Professional Pollster me (along with a lot of other people, of course.)  To discern that, I didn’t have to go to Georgia, or talk to any Georgians.  The sum total of my Georgia-related knowledge is pretty thin: “Sweet Georgia Brown,” is a catchy tune, as is “Georgia on My Mind;” peaches are tasty; the Falcons had a good year, and trying to take I-75 through downtown Atlanta anytime other than between midnight and 4 a.m. is a mistake.  That’s it.

So how was I able to see what brainiacs like Nate Silver and savants like Rachel Maddow couldn’t?  I’ve been pondering that question for almost a week now, and I’ve come up with an answer, in the form of The Simpson Face Punchability Index (SFPI) (copyright right now, by me).

Human faces can elicit strong reactions.  We’ve all known some guy who gets in a lot of fights, not because of his actions, but because people just don’t like his natural expression.  And we’ve all known unfortunate women who have been stricken with the heartbreak of resting b**ch face.

I’ve taken those facts, and through a proprietary process of rigorous thought and research, arrived at the conclusion that all human faces can be assigned a punchability value on a scale of 1 (a face that even a sociopathically violent person would be disinclined to punch) to 10 (a face that even a Buddhist monk so committed to nonviolence that he goes out of his way to avoid stepping on a bug can barely restrain himself from punching.)

For example, I have a pretty low SFPI.  I’m not very attractive, but small children and animals are drawn to me, I always got along well with my girlfriends’ parents, and strangers regularly ask me for directions, even though I am never the least bit helpful with directions.  On the other hand, thin-skinned, humorless leftists really REALLY want to punch me, so I can’t be a 1 or 2.  Thus, my SFPI is 2.5.

This is not a partisan issue, either.  Rush Limbaugh and Ted Cruz both have SFPIs of 8, while Trey Gowdy is an 8.5 – and I like all of them!  By contrast, NY Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, North Dakota Senator Heidi Heitkamp and actor John Cusack all are 2s, even though they all could objectively use a good pummeling.  Trump and Hillary are both 7.5s, which is what made the November contest so close.

Because I know you’re curious: the highest SFPI ever recorded was Harry Reid, with a 9.9.  If Gandhi and St. Francis were walking down a hallway and Dingy Harry were walking the other way, Gandhi would set him up with a left jab, and Francis would put him down with a right cross.  And Harry’s mom, if she were inexplicably still alive at age 125, would high five both of them. (I think that that mysterious eye injury that Harry had during his last year in office came from his own fist, when he saw himself in the mirror and couldn’t avoid the sudden instinct to punch himself.)

Anyway, I know that you see where this is going.  Karen Handel is the PTA mom or sweet, quietly competent lady who does your taxes; her SFPI is 1.5.  Jon Ossoff is the Eddie Haskel kid that annoys everybody, and even his girlfriend won’t let him drive when they are going anywhere; his SFPI is 8.5.

Thus, $30 million thrown into a small district on his behalf could only get him to within 4 points.

Now I sit back and wait for the nation’s pollsters to come to me, offering millions of dollars for access to the Unified Field Theory of politics that is the Simpson Face Punchability Index©.  Bring your checkbook, Nate Silver, or continue to embarrass yourself.”

In July, I came across a great “my favorite feminist” story:

“Finally, I’ve discovered the purest distillation of a certain kind of misanthropically deranged feminism that you’ll ever see.   Please google “Jody Allard,” and read her article called, “I’m Done Pretending Men are Safe (even my sons),” and prepared to be dazzled by her contemplative open-mindedness.   Allard is a feminist writing about how horrible men are (surprise, surprise), with the added twist of calling out her two young sons as potential rapists, too.

After first throwing her boys under the gender bus in an article for the Washington Post, she writes this follow-up article in which she reports that even though her sons are “good boys,” they aren’t “safe.”  In fact, she cluelessly shows that she’s not just a sexist, but a racist too, by proclaiming, “White people aren’t safe, and men aren’t safe, no matter how much I’d like to assure myself that these things aren’t true.”

The kindest compliment that she can manage is to say, “My sons won’t rape unconscious women behind a dumpster, and neither will most of the progressive men I know.”

Gee thanks, mom.  Love you too.

And by the way, you’re probably asking yourself, does that imply that non-progressive men will obviously be raping women behind dumpsters pretty much every weekend, and on alternating Tuesdays?

Yes.  Yes it does.

At one moment in her written Rohrschach test of a screed, Allard almost achieves a tiny flicker of self-awareness, but then fights it off:  “I love my sons, and I love some individual men. It pains me to say that I don’t feel emotionally safe with them, and perhaps never have with a man, but it needs to be said because far too often we are afraid to say it. This is not a reflection of something broken or damaged in me…”

NO, of course not!  You’re doing great, just the way you are.  You just keep doing you, and I’m sure your boys  — Norman Bates Allard and Ted Bundy Allard — are going to turn out just fine.”

 

In August, my favorite story involved an airline, and the sexual preference of their seatbelts:

“Royal Dutch Airlines (slogan: “We’re not just wooden shoes and open-air heroin markets.  We have airplanes, too!”) decided that the best way to entice people to fly with them was to tout their hyper- extra- super-gay friendliness.  So they created an ad that features three sets of rainbow-colored seatbelts.

On top – no offense – is a pair of what might be called “female” seatbelts.   (Those are the ones with the handle that you pull on to release the belt in case you’ve crashed into a rocky outcropping 7 miles from Denver at 350 mph and are now experiencing discomfort, and would like to exit the plane in an orderly manner.)

In the middle is a pair of what might be called “male” seatbelts.  (Those are the ones that you would usually shove into the “female” ones – no offense – until you hear a satisfying click.  Or a less satisfying click, if both of you are tired and your mother-in-law called with some advice during supper and your boss has been on your back at work and won’t those freaking kids ever shut up and go to sleep so I can concentrate on what I’m doing here?!)

On the bottom – no offense – is one “male” piece and one “female” piece.

The tag line: “It doesn’t matter who you click with.  Happy #Pride Amsterdam”

As many commentators pointed out, the flaw in the ad is so obvious that even Paul Krugman could spot it: only one set of those seatbelts actually work, and this ad undermines its point hilariously.

If CO produced videos – and really, why doesn’t he? – this would be a prime candidate for a response ad.  Here’s the scenario:  The pilot announces that there is turbulence ahead, so he (or she – no offense) turns on the “fasten seatbelt” sign.   Everybody with heterosexual seat belts (no offense) snaps them on, and lives happily ever after.

Everybody with the “alternative lifestyle” seat belts rattles and pokes and bonks them together ineffectually, and then increasingly frantically, until the turbulence hits, throwing them all violently about the cabin, breaking limbs and fracturing T-3 vertebrae hither and yon.

Tag line: “Lufthansa.  We could not care less who you sleep with.  And our seatbelts work.”

 

Up next:  In the last third of the year, 2017 gets better and better.

I hope that everyone had a great Christmas and have started the new year off well!  As 2017 ended, I felt very grateful for the past year of writing for CO’s site.  When CO first told me about his site toward the end of 2016, and asked if he could post one of my rants that I’d shared with him and several other friends privately, I was happy to have him do so. And I’ve been having a blast ever since — I can’t tell you all how much fun it has been to have the chance to pop off on the news of the day, and virtually “meet” all of you here.

I’ve always enjoyed Dave Barry’s year-end synopses, and I thought that as the new year starts, I’d like to look back on a very enjoyable year, and choose some of my favorite events of the year, as I commented on them in various CO pieces.  (Especially since the CO army is growing every day, I know that many of you may not have caught these musings the first time around.)

Because some of you have mentioned that some of my columns can get a little long – and by the way, how dare you! – I thought I’d divide these into 3 parts.

So I give you “The Best of 2017, Part 1: January – April”

The event that obviously dominated January was Trump’s inauguration, followed immediately by the wildly entertaining Inaugural Protest March:

“I’m sure that there were lots of well-meaning, good-hearted people who took part in the march in DC; I know at least one of my coworkers who did so, and she’s a good person.  And I know that it’s probably tough to police the group yourself, and to keep idiots from joining your group and discrediting it.

But Man o’ Manischewitz, what a menagerie.  The usual black-masked anarchists destroying property.  Unattractive people of indeterminate gender carrying signs forbidding evil males from impregnating them or telling them what to do once they are impregnated.  (I speak for all male-kind when I say, don’t lose any sleep over the possibility of the former.  Because, nope.)   Crude drawings of female organs, internal and external.  Obscenity-scrawled signs alongside marching children who should be taught not to say those words.  Shrieking celebrity harridans hollering about blowing up the White House.  Formerly attractive actresses screaming poems about incest.

And by the way, no decent poet ever had to scream his or her poetry.  No one in Christendom ever said, “Hey, you want to come down to the coffeeshop?  Emily Dickinson is going to give a high-decibel poetry wail.”  Or “Save the 15th, because Alfred Lord Tennyson is doing a standing-room only couplet yelping at the top of his lungs.”  Or, “You know what I like about Shakespeare’s sonnets?  They’re f**king deafening!”

(And yes, English majors, I’ve read self-proclaimed poet Alan Ginsberg’s  “Howl,” and it’s no exception: it might as well be screamed, and it’s terrible.  I’ve read the best minds of your generation too, and there’s a good reason they were starving.  No one in their right minds would buy that crap.)(To get that last joke, you may have to re-read the opening of “Howl.”  But don’t hold me responsible for any ill effects.)

Who exactly do the marchers think they are reaching with their subtle, persuasive message?  Think about it: a bunch of women marching in vagina-simulating hats?  Because if anything connotes well thought-out moral seriousness, it’s genitalia-evoking head gear!  Can you picture the impact of a million male march, all of us wearing phallic-symbol chapeaux?  (The ear flaps mimic testicles!  Get it?)  THAT would really make the matriarchy stand up and reconsider our point about the appropriate size of government!

Or would it just make us look like an army of un-telegenic lunatics? And launch a thousand late-night comics’ routines about whose hats were flaccid, and what the guys in the 10-gallon-size phallic hats were insecure about.   And what that Jenner person was doing there in a phallic hat and a vaginal scarf?”

 

Later in the month, as Trump had barely taken office, Chuck Schumer was already – literally – crying about it:  “When Trump’s perfectly justifiable but badly handled executive order temporarily banning foreigners from terrorism-riddled countries rolled out, Chuckie actually cried about it.  In public.  I was raised in the Midwest a hundred years ago, where there was a code about grown men crying.  A few tears were acceptable if your spouse died in childbirth, or your son died in battle, or you lost a limb in a farm accident.  If my sister or I had ever seen my dad in tears and ran to tell mom, I can predict her response:  “Oh lord!  Which arm is it, and can we pull it out of the thresher so the doctors can re-attach it?!”

You know what she would NOT have asked in a million years?  “Good God, how many foreigners have been momentarily inconvenienced at an airport?!”

 

In February, amidst the first thrashings of the lefty outrage that I had assumed would naturally die down after a while (update, so far: nope!), I wrote a helpful list of tips for my lefty friends on how to respond to the new president, one of which was:  “If you start with the outrage meter pegged to 11 for every garden-variety bonehead comment that Trump makes, you’re going to lose your voice, burst a blood vessel, and be thoroughly ignored when Trump does something truly egregious.  One of my favorite Simpson’s moments was when the mayor unveiled a presidential statue; the townspeople expected Abraham Lincoln, but Springfield could only afford Jimmy Carter.  When the statue is revealed, one character points and says, “He’s history’s greatest monster!”

Trump is likely to be an inconsistent president, but he’s not going to be a Stalin, or a Mao, or an Asmodeus, Destroyer of Men.  Don’t be the boy who cried Carter.”

A few weeks later, amidst leftist groaning about Trump’s narcissism, I pointed out that Barack “my election will halt the rising of the seas” Obama had just a tiny trace of egotism, too.  And I expressed a few thoughts on how leftist pols are probably more susceptible to egotistical mission creep because of their political beliefs:

“I would argue that leftist ideology tends to exacerbate and weaponize the narcissism that all presidents are prey to.  Small government, free market conservatism teaches humility, stressing that no bureaucrat in Washington knows as much about any area of the economy or society as those who specialize in those areas.  (Hence, “That government is best which governs least.”)   Yes, I know, very few pols live up to that ideal, we are all flawed and etc.  But at least a conservative pol who begins to over-reach has an ideology that will serve as a check, if s/he’ll try to be true to it.  (I’ll grant you that Trump has not so far been… how should I say this? … particularly dissuaded by that check.)

Not so, leftism.  An ideology that sees a huge role for a centralized, omnivorous governmental bureaucracy cannot help but tempt already egotistical pols into ever greater power grabs.  You say you don’t know a redwood from a crape myrtle?  Doesn’t matter.  You’re in the Interior Department, so you are WAY more qualified to set logging policies than those idiot families of little people who have only been in the logging business for 3 generations.  You’ve never had a job in the private sector?  By all means, set fiscal policy for 330 million people.  You’ve never been a security guard, or touched a real gun, or done anything more than watching a couple of seasons of NYPD Blue?  Please tell our nation’s police forces exactly how they should be doing their job.  You wouldn’t know a pancreas from a uvula? (which sounds like something dirty, but disappointingly, is not) Feel free to take over 1/6 of the US economy, and give doctors and nurses a helpful little 9600-page, rule-filled tome dictating how health care should work, down to the last mammogram and tongue depressor.”

In the middle of February came another entertaining lefty protest:  “In what parents throughout the saner precincts of the nation celebrated as the most teachable moment that their kids could ever have, the “Day without Immigrants” (2/16) was followed immediately in many areas (starting 2/17) with “A Future without Employment,” created when many employers decided that they could do without employees who don’t appreciate being employed.  I know that many immigrants who participated aren’t here illegally, but many are – I mean, that’s the point, right?  To show us how much we need all of the many workers who are living and working here illegally?  So leave it to the reliably thick-headed Atlantic magazine to publish an article on the topic, with the subtitle, “Around 100 workers were reportedly fired for participating in last week’s strike. Whether that’s legal remains to be seen.“   Yep.  We’re not sure that it’s legal to fire people who are working here ILLEGALLY.  Yikes.  You keep doing you, brilliant leftist magazines.

While I don’t usually enjoy seeing people lose their jobs, I certainly used this example to give a little “this is how the world works” life lesson to my two now-teenaged daughters.  Not that they needed it, however.  When my second daughter was born, my oldest was 4, and I had the talk with her that I’m sure all good dads have with their kids: “Honey, we now have an auxiliary daughter.   Should you be unable to carry out the duties of the primary daughter, your mother and I are going to move her up to the gold medal stand.  Now get back to your pre-K homework, because those state capitals and days of the week are not going to memorize themselves.”

I can only hope and pray that soon we will see a “Day without Lawyers,” followed by “A Day without Federal Bureaucrats.”  I would wish for “A Day without smarmy leftist Air America hosts,” or “A Day without President Hillary Clinton,” but then I remember that EVERY day is a day without those.  And I can’t stop giggling.”

 

By March, my Democrat friends seemed to be accelerating through “entertaining folly” and driving headlong into “incipient mental illness.”  Because I am not a better person, I have to admit that I enjoyed watching their reactions:

“As we approach the four-month anniversary of the election, I’ve realized that along with screwing up the economy, foreign policy, health care and being able to declare a Best Picture winner at the Oscars, the left has also screwed up the stages of grief.

I was a young man when I first heard of the Kubler-Ross grief cycle.  I was riding a lousy little Yamaha 400 then, with aspirations to move up to a Harley, but you can imagine my excitement that I could end up on a Kubler-Ross!  I wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but it had to be German.  And a “grief cycle!?”  Can you imagine the reactions of the young women in my small Midwestern town when I cruised by in a leather jacket on one of those?  I sure could.  I figured I’d put some loud pipes on mine, and paint some flames on the gas tank.

Imagine my disappointment when I found out that Kubler-Ross was an academic, and the cycle of grief had to do with how we deal with loss.  You know the process: first denial, then anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance.

Not that I was thinking about any of that on election night.  I went into the evening thinking that Hillary would win, mostly because my fellow citizens had broken my heart in 2012 when they re-elected Obama.  (I could see voting for him in ’08, when he was young and new and biracial, and McCain was old and cranky and bipartisan.  But after those 4 years, and $6 trillion in new debt with nothing to show for it, and against the manifestly decent and competent Mittster? Ugh.)  But then the glass ceiling fell on Hillary like the house falling on the Wicked Witch of the East, and I shifted into the Simpson-Bailey giddiness cycle.

Named after me and Jimmy Stewart’s character in It’s a Wonderful Life, the stages are as follows:  1. scotch, 2. dawning euphoria, 3. running through downtown in the snow screaming maniacally (“Yeah!  Merry Christmas movie house!  Merry Christmas red states!  Yyyeeeaaahhhh!”), 4. Conan’s “What is best in life?” meditation (“To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, to hear the lamentations of their metrosexuals in the Javits Center.”), and then 5. a schadenfreude-induced reaction about which you are supposed to call your doctor if it lasts more than 4 hours.

Good times.”

In April, the year got even better when Nikki “joy of man’s desiring” Haley went to the UN:

“Not since I first saw an early 1980s Nena (and if you’re just joining us, drop everything and watch the Germanic adorableness that is the “99 Luft Balloons” video on Youtube right this minute), have I been as smitten as I am by 2017 Nikki Haley giving speeches at the UN.   In her first months on the job, she’s already lambasted the daily knee-jerk condemnations of Israel while overlooking human rights abuses everywhere else, slapped down Bolivia’s attempt to discuss Syria’s child-gassing behind closed doors (“Any country that chooses to defend the atrocities of the Syrian regime will have to do so in full public view, for all the world to hear.”), among many other rhetorical “drop the mike” moments. Almost all coverage of her, even by our reflexively hostile leftist press, has noted that she minces no words.  And after two terms of the Obama administration and their 8 consecutive gold medals in Greco-Roman Word Mincing, she’s a breath of fresh air, to say the least.

In fact, I’m not sure whether I now consider Nikki Haley more of a brilliant Indian-American Nena, or if I consider 1983 Nena as more of an irresistibly cute German Nikki Haley.  The point is, I can’t get enough Nikki Haley.  The only way I think her next speech could be better than her last several would be if she came out in skinny jeans and a black leather jacket, kicking red balloons out into the annoyed faces of the wretched hive of scum and villainy that make up the human-rights-trampling kleptocrats of the UN.”

Later in the month, I learned about a new lefty objection to Trump’s Wall (which, sadly, is yet unbuilt):

“When it comes to Trump’s Wall, I thought I’d heard every possible leftist objection: it’s racist, it’s Not Who We Are, it’s expensive, it’s not gluten free, etc.  But this month, some “scientists” pointed out a new problem, which the MSM then picked up with gusto: it will harm various migratory animal species.  I have to admit that I hadn’t thought about that, and at first blush it certainly seemed plausible, and as an animal lover, that bothered me.

Until I read that those soon-to-be-devastated creatures included “108 species of migratory birds.”  Now it’s been a long time since I won that Nobel Prize in Ornithology – bilingual ornithology, if I can be allowed to toot my own horn — and I haven’t kept up on recent developments in the field.  But if I remember correctly, many birds can fly.

Sure, a few can’t.  You’ve got your chickens, your ostriches, your emi.  (Not many non-ornithologists know that the proper Latin plural of “emu” is “emi.”  Again, you’re welcome.)

But are those leftist Chicken Littles (HA!) really expecting us to believe that there are hundreds of bird species out there who migrate ON FOOT?  They will stop at nothing to tug at our heartstrings, and I’ve got to admit that that PSA almost writes itself: Sarah McLaughlin sings softly in the background, while endless hordes of bedraggled birds trudge along through scorching sand, wincing at every step, until they bonk into a big black wall that looks like Sauron built it.  Then they stack up like cordwood at the base, quacking and bleating and making whatever other sounds they make (I didn’t really get a Nobel in Ornithology), while Trump and Ryan laugh from atop the wall as they start to tip over huge cauldrons of boiling oil onto the hapless birds.

And not for the first time do I wish that Sam Kinison was still with us, because you know that he’d bust into the middle of that PSA and start berating the birds: “Have you been WALKING across this freaking desert?  Really?!  Your feet have either tiny claws or webs on them – doesn’t that tell you something?  I’ve got an idea: how about you USE YOUR WINGS!!  They’re right there on your backs.  FLAP THEM!  OH! OOOHHHH!”

We miss you, Sam.  We don’t miss Harry Reid, or Obama, or Hillary.  But we miss you.”

Next up:  Part 2, May – August, in which Planned Parenthood embraces Mother’s Day, a national Dem convention embraces screaming obscenities, and an airline comes up with alternative-lifestyle seatbelts…

It’s only a few days before Christmas, and I thought I’d post one more time before everyone who hasn’t already scattered for the holiday scatters for the holiday.

I have a couple of favorite stories to mention, followed by a “Best-of” Christmas list.

Story 1 – Trump closes out the year with a great tax cut that is sweetness and light, six ways to Sunday!  Cutting the corporate rate from universe-high to competitive-with-other countries is going to boost economic growth to an extent that will surprise only single-celled organisms and Paul Krugman.  Plus, in probably the best under-reported, seemingly unrelated bonus ever, the Obamacare mandate was killed as a part of this!

Holy cow!  It’s like you were just given an amazingly delicious candy bar, and then you found out that the foil it was wrapped in is gold of such high quality that you are now in a higher tax bracket… and your taxes just got cut!  Plus, the chocolate that it is made of is delicious, and yet somehow causes you to lose weight and lower your cholesterol.  Plus it’s Christmas morning, and the prize turkey – the enormous one, in the poulterer’s window in the next street but one – is still available, and the kid passing by your mansion – delightful boy, remarkable boy – will run and get it for you for a crown.  Which you now have plenty of, because of your magical gold-wrapped candy bar, and your tax cut!  God bless us, every one!

2. What is the only thing more fun than watching the Trumpkin take a tax-cut victory lap right before Christmas? Watching the congressional Democrats lose their minds over it. Nancy Pelosi said, “Oil can.  Oil can.”  By which she meant, “this is a disaster, the world is ending!”  Chuck Schumer said, “Waaaahhhh!”   Elizabeth Warren painted her face with ashes and did the Ghost Dance, piercing her flesh in a mysterious ceremony understood only by the Connecticut Commanches.  Or was it the Massachusetts MicMac?  Or the Wampanoag WASPS?  I can never remember what tribe she is from.   (Say it with me: we should never stop mocking Elizabeth Warren.)

My favorite leftist reaction – dutifully picked up by various leftist reporters – was that this tax reform will mean a huge tax increase in 2027 for most Americans.   The first time I heard that, the date slipped past me.  But the third or fourth time, I started wondering, and with just a few seconds on Google, I realized what these slimy pols are saying: the tax cut will sunset in 2027.  So technically, they are correct – if nothing changes in 10 years (!), and the rate is allowed to revert to what it is now, then Americans will face a tax increase.

WHEN THIS TAX CUT ENDS!  Do you get it?  This tax cut is terrible.  Because it’s so great, that when it ends and rates go back to what Democrats want, it will be terrible.   That gall of these people should not continue to surprise me, but somehow it still does.

It’s like a doctor telling a 25 year old with a scary cancer diagnosis, “I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news.  We have a treatment, but it’s going to result in you dying after what is likely to be declining health, in your mid-90s.”

The 25-year-old starts to cry, but then looks confused.  “What?  You mean, the treatment is going to cure my cancer?”

“Yes,” Doctor Schumer says, “for now. But I’m afraid that’s going to mean that you’ll die of old age, in a weakened state, after what we expect will be a long decline.”

“You mean, 70 years from now?!”

“Yes.”

“After I’ve lived a full life?  Surrounded by my kids and grandkids?”

Doctor, exasperated.  “Are you not getting this?  You’re going to die!”

“In the year 2087?  Not next spring, when all the flowers are in bloom?”

“Yes!  You finally understand!”

“Please stand right there, while I strangle you with your stethoscope.”

And, scene.

 

3 – A new poll just came out with the finding that Hillary Clinton’s approval rating is at an all-time low.

I know, she should be old news, and we should be tiring of kicking that nearly dead Clydesdale-ankled horse, and her approval ratings have no pressing political importance.  And yet, they fill me with sweet, unreasoning glee.

Several of you were kind enough to call me the gift that keeps on giving this year, but I am a lightweight in that category beside Hillary Clinton!  She has spent a full year stepping on one rake after another, with truly gratifying results; she’s written a book and given what seems like 1000 speeches, and has blamed everyone but the defensive backfield of the TCU Horned Frogs for her loss in the election.  And just by staying in the public eye, she is a constant reminder of how great it is that she is not the president.  Hillary 2020 – We’re all with Her again!

This has truly been a December that verged on “too much winning!”  So as I prepare myself to celebrate Christmas, and I warm myself by standing next to the embers that remain from the last of Obama’s legacy, now totally consumed and turned to ash by a fire as orange as the hair of the man who lit it, I reflect on the best of the Christmas season.

Best Christmas music/songs:  Handel’s Messiah; O Come, O Come Emmanuel; Once in Royal David’s City; and Hark, the Herald Angels Sing all have to be in the Top 5.  For a singer, I really like an eccentric guy named Sufjan Stevens – check out some of his Christmas songs on Youtube.  Also, our Lutheran church features Silent Night (sung by candlelight) on Christmas eve, and always has us sing one verse in German.  Which is hilarious, because there is no greater juxtaposition than that between lyrics about a soothing, moonlit scene and the lilting, back-of-the-throat consonants of German (“Stille NACHT, heilige NACHT!”).   (Manger owner’s kid:  “Daddy, where does that angry wise man who is cursing at baby Jesus come from?”  Dad:  “Germany.”  Child: “Ohhh. Now it makes sense.”)

Best Christmas writing:  Dickens to win, place and show on this one, with A Christmas Carol.   I love this one so much that I both watch at least two versions of it each year, and listen to it on cd as we drive to see family.  If you like to listen to books, get Frank Muller’s version, which is perfect.

Best Christmas decoration:  the tree, of course.   A wreath is nice, some garland is cool, and I can appreciate a Santa outfit, but the tree is the main event.   I know, it’s a pagan Germanic thing, but Christianity subsumed a cool tradition, and made it more about love and family and less about cleaving your enemies’ skulls with a battle axe.  So, well done, Christians.

Best Christmas memory: The year my sister and I got toys that were so gender appropriate that it was ridiculous.  Mom and dad got us each a giant, cardboard and plastic playhouse type of thing: my sister’s was a kitchen (with an oven that opened!) and mine was a tank.

A tank, I tells ya!  With a viewing slit to look through as I imagined steering over snowy fields near Bastogne, and a plastic machine gun with a range of fire that included whichever German pillboxes were nearby, and also my sister’s kitchen, which I repeatedly raked with imaginary .50 caliber bullets.

There was no gender dysmorphia around the Simpson household, is my point.

I hope you all have a great Christmas!