First up today, I write in mourning over my beloved home state of Illinois. Though I left over 30 years ago, most of my family is still there–not to mention CO and COW, for a little while, at least — and I will always have an emotional tie to the Land of Lincoln. (Who, right this minute, has to be whirling in his grave at a high velocity.)
But the voters of the mostly red state outside of Chicago have always been swamped by the Big Blue Corruption Machine of Chicago. (Motto: “Al Capone? We’re ALL Capone!”) (Hat tip to Andrew Klavan.)
In 2016 they replaced a GOP billionaire governor who didn’t seem the sharpest knife in the drawer with a Democrat billionaire governor who isn’t even the sharpest knife in a drawer full of smooth, rounded stones. He’s passed a raft of taxes on everything that moves, so you know that happy times will soon be here again. (In TN, and TX and Florida, and every other red state that will be accepting the productive Illinoisans who are fleeing the greedy corrupt-a-crats in IL.)
To make matters worse, on April 2nd Chicago held elections, and the results are not encouraging.
In the mayoral race, Toni Preckwinkle lost to Lori Lightfoot. And I won’t lie – when it comes to hilarious leftist names, losing Preckwinkle is going to hurt. (By the way, if you think that “Preckwinkle and Lightfoot” would make a hell of a 1970’s police show, you’re not wrong.) (Would Lightfoot happen to be a by-the-book cop who’s one year away from retirement, while Preckwinkle is a hot-tempered rookie who can’t follow the rules? I think you know the answer to that.)
But not as much as Chicago is going to hurt, with what looks to be yet another 4 years under a mediocre leftist mayor. (Although to be fair, both finalists were apparently far lefty knuckleheads, so the election result likely won’t make much difference.)
Lightfoot has never held office before. But she is black, and female, and gay. So… she’s got that going for her, I guess.
On the other hand, because she’s the walking embodiment of the Identify Politics trifecta, there is virtually no mistake that she can make for which she can be held accountable. In fact, you are a terrible racist, sexist, homophobe for suggesting that it’s even possible that she CAN make a mistake. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.
On the bright side, Preckwinkle and Lightfoot (cue the 70’s synth-heavy theme song, as they race out of a police building and slide across the hood of a 72 Gran Torino) (it’s Preckwinkle’s undercover ride.) defeated another Daley, the scion of the old corrupt Democrat machine. I’m not sure how that was allowed to happen.
In any event, you’d think that a Daley losing would have to be a step in the right direction. But you would be wrong.
Because the results were arguably even worse in the city council elections, in which – and I quote a headline: “Socialists Surge to Victories.” That’s right, five or six fresh new faces are bringing their fresh new ideology to the City of the Slumped Shoulders.
Sorry, that should be “City of the Big Shoulders.” Or maybe it shouldn’t.
How about, “Dog Butcher for the World?” (Yes! That’s a Carl Sandburg/Venezuela joke that four people in the world got, but it fills me with joy anyway.)
Anyway, buck up, Chicago. Just because the last 114 attempts at socialism have produced nothing but gulags and grinding poverty and firing squads and terrible folk music and Bernie Sanders doesn’t mean that this time won’t be different.
On a less depressing note, I know that many of you have probably been sitting around asking yourselves, “What is the most vapid, millennial, first-world-problem complaint that has ever been made in the history of the world?”
I give you the Notorious AOC, in a deadly serious tweet that she posted last week:
“Croissants at LaGuardia are going for SEVEN DOLLARS A PIECE 😱 Yet some people think getting a whole hour of personal, dedicated human labor for $15 is too expensive??”
What is wrong with that tweet? I count at least 7 things:
- It was written by a sitting US congressperson with a degree in economics who has never heard of supply and demand.
- Using ALL CAPS does not make your argument more convincing.
- If you do decide to use all caps, the capitalized letters better spell out something like, “WWIII BEGINS!” Because “PASTRIES ARE TOO EXPENSIVE!” doesn’t cut it.
- She followed the all caps with an emoji of a shocked cartoon face. Serious people do not use emojis. There’s a reason that Patrick Henry wrote, “Give me liberty or give me death!” instead of “Poop emoji, Union Jack, Thumbs Down, Noose, Middle Finger, Frowny Face.” And it’s not just because emojis weren’t invented yet.
- Her choice to connect expensive airport bread to a complaint that the minimum wage is too low is what we sane people call a non sequitur. It makes no more sense than if I tweeted, “Lobster goes for MARKET PRICE, yet no one will paint a reasonably priced oil portrait of Cassie the Wonder Dog in an ermine cape holding an orb and scepter for the wall of my study!”
- Everything at LaGuardia is expensive because it is run by a kleptocrat government monopoly. You know, like the way you want the entire country to be run, AOC. (Which reminds me: “When I win a Monopoly Beauty Contest I only win 50 DOLLARS! Yet some people think I should have to pay 3 times that when I land on Park Place with a hotel on it! Frowny Face emoji, #fightboardgameinequality!)
- Hey Sweet Pea, what do you think will happen to the price of croissants if you force the Croissant Hut to pay their low-skill employees higher wages? Here’s a hint: “Croissants at LaGuardia are going for FIFTEEN DOLLARS A PIECE! Yet some people think that paying someone $30 an hour is too expensive??
Ugh. Leftists destroying Chicago, leftists destroying New York, San Francisco is hip-deep in human waste, crazy old white ladies who identify as Indians are running for president (#wemustneverstopmockingher) against trust-fund Irish beta males who identify as Hispanics (#let’smockhimtoo).
I know what you’re thinking: Are there no feel-good stories that Martacus can leave us with to start our Monday off on the right foot?
I’m glad you asked. Because I was reading the South African papers with my morning coffee last week (as one does) when I came across this headline: “Suspected Rhino Poacher Killed by Elephant, Then Eaten by Lions.”
As a lover of animals – but not in a creepy, Joe Biden way, where I sneak up behind them and stroke their muzzles and sniff their manes – I always enjoy a good “Poacher gets his thorax gored as he zeroes in his rifle on a newborn gazelle” story.
And this one is pretty sweet. Some low-life would-be rhino poacher sneaks into a national park with four miscreant buddies. Annnnnndd… the buddies tell his family he was killed by an elephant.
So the family tells the cops, and they launch a search that finds, and I quote, “”Indications… suggest[ing] that a pride of lions had devoured the remains, leaving only a human skull and a pair of pants.”
You’d have to have a heart of stone not to laugh at that detail. A skull and a pair of pants?! I think the lions were taunting the authorities. (“Take the cannoli,” one unexpectedly Italian lion said. “Leave the skull and pants.”)
The only disappointing thing about the story is the name of the guy who runs the national park where the glorious story unfolded. I was hoping for a sweet, African name like Umgabi Lopopo, but no: it’s Glenn Phillips.
But Mr. Phillips has a way with words. He’s mastered the press release understatement: “Entering Kruger National Park illegally and on foot is not wise.” You don’t say.
He went on to express condolences to the family, “It is very sad to see the daughters of the [deceased] mourning the loss of their father, and worse still, only being able to recover very little of his remains.”
“Worse still,” Glenn?! You really think that the worst part was that they only recovered the skull and pants? You think maybe they’d feel better if they’d retrieved more of his wardrobe and organs?! “Oh thank God,” his wife would say, “at least we have his suspenders and two-thirds of his trachea.”
To which his daughters would reply, “Yes! And we’ll always treasure his prized pair of poaching spats, and his partially chewed uvula!”
(By the way, a young punk band looking for a new name could do a lot worse than “Partially Chewed Uvula.”)
The only thing I don’t understand is why the authorities are blaming an elephant for the killing. I mean, it’s not like they recovered a torso with elephant-foot-shaped trample marks on it. The guy is a skull and a pair of pants soaked in lion saliva!
Unless they have surveillance video of an elephant trunk-whipping the guy to death in a parking lot and then fist-bumping an approaching lion as he leaves the scene of the crime, I find the elephant-blaming very suspicious.
This sounds like a case for… Preckwinkle and Lightfoot!
Martin Simpson 