Month: February 2021

Rush Limbaugh has died, and leftist celebrities, creeps, and MSM figures – but I repeat myself – are showing the kind of class and empathy we’ve come to expect from them.   In a series of repulsive tweets and social media postings, they are demonstrating for the world their complete depravity and moral bankruptcy.

I get it.  Rush was smarter than them and funnier than them, and he was able to skewer their pretentious bloviating, while carrying on a master class of tongue-in-cheek bombast of his own.

He was flawed and imperfect, as are we all.  But he was a happy warrior for those who love America, and a thorn in the side of the “blame-America-first” detractors on the left.  He gave voice to the common-sense conservative views of millions whom the MSM constantly denigrates.  He knew that we aren’t deplorables, and he cheerfully counter-punched the condescending scolds who looked down their Pinocchio noses at us. 

I don’t need to provide a roll call of hateful leftists who are gleefully dancing on Limbaugh’s grave.  Instead, I’ll just mention one typical example, which I came across in a NY Post article on a triumvirate of nauseating UC Riverside professors who sent an email to media sources pitching their own availability for interviews, calling themselves “Rush Limbaugh experts.”

A paragraph into the story, I came upon the name of Reza Aslan, a small-minded bigot so vile that even CNN couldn’t stomach him, and fired him a few years ago.  So naturally, he got a job as a professor. 

Sidebar: do you remember when Bill Clinton had to give up his law license in the wake of his perjury in the Monica Lewinsky scandal?  I had thought that that indictment had to be the all-time most damning: not ethical enough to be a lawyer! 

But Reza Aslan has outdone even Handsy McGroperton: Aslan is too hateful to work at CNN!

If you haven’t heard of Aslan, consider yourself lucky, and pardon me for introducing you to his work.  In addition to sullying the name of C.S. Lewis’ great Christ-figure lion from the Narnia books, Aslan has sullied himself.  In the latest press release, he called Limbaugh a, “one-man hate industry,” who “sowed hatred and fear,” and concluded that “America is objectively a better place without Rush in it.”

Judging from his criticism of Limbaugh’s “hate,” you might assume that Reza is a regular font of love in his own writing. 

Sadly, you would be wrong.  

For a little taste of Reza’s warm-and-fuzzy approach to “commentary,” we need go no farther than his take on Trump’s reaction to a rash of terrorist attacks carried out by some oh-so-peaceful jihadis in London in the summer of 2017.  “Oh the joy when this lying conniving scumbag narcissistic sociopath piece of s**t fake president finally gets what’s coming to him.”  Also, he also expressed the pithy sentiment that Trump was “a piece of s**t.” 

When Ruth Bader Ginsburg died late last year, he tweeted, “If they even TRY to replace RBG we burn the entire f**king thing down.”

Did I mention that Reza is a professor of religion?  Yeah.

I haven’t read all of the hadiths and suras and what-not, but I’m not sure there’s one that counsels, “When someone with whom you politically disagree dies, go thou out and publicly urinate on his grave, and celebrate his death as if thou wert a hell-spawn socialist demon-ghoul.” 

Now, from what you’ve just read, you might think that I believe that it’s never appropriate to joke about and celebrate somebody’s death.  But long-time readers of my column know that that’s not the case, as they may remember from my comments when we used a drone to kill a man named Turki al-Bin’ali in Syria in 2017. 

He held the exalted title of the Islamic State’s Grand Mufti, and some of his own people had criticized him as having too high a profile as he traveled around the Middle East. They said that he was “too visible,” a decision which allowed us to give him a good ol’ drone-delivered proctological strike.

At the time, I came up with a dad-joke that I told my daughters after reading them the story: “That’s one Turki who didn’t make it until Thanksgiving!”

Groan if you must.  My daughters certainly did.

And as annoying as it may be when someone laughs at his own jokes, I also wrote a line that still makes me snicker when I think of it: “Does anyone else see the irony in a bunch of misogynists so prudish that they force their women to hide themselves in bee-keeper outfits, getting defeated because their Mufti was too visible?”

Boom!

Please send your complaints to the great and powerful CO, founder of the Cautious Optimism website.

So the moral of today’s column is this:  It is appropriate to laugh at someone’s death only if that person is either manifestly evil, or engaging in an evil act when killed, or both. 

I’ll close with two instructive examples ripped from today’s headlines:

First, on Monday, 61-year-old Harold Runnels knocked on the door of a house in Aiken, SC.  When 79-year-old Lois Parrish came to the door, he pushed her aside, forcing his way into the house and pulling a knife on her.

Unfortunately for Runnels, Lois Parrish is married to 82-year-old Herbert Parrish, who is a veteran.  Even more unfortunately, he is a veteran who owns a shotgun.  And when he saw Runnels threatening his 79-year-old sweetheart, he killed him with his shotgun.

At first, the idea of an 82-year-old defending himself with a shotgun might sound unusual, but not extremely so.  Most old folks have the strength to pull a trigger, after all.  (Even Joe Biden – if he were still alive – could probably manage that.)

But you’ve jumped to the wrong conclusion.  I said that Parrish killed him with a shotgun, not that he SHOT him with a shotgun.

That’s right.  Octogenarian Herbert Parrish beat septuagenarian-wife-attacker Runnels to death with his shotgun.  And I know what you’re thinking: how does an 82-year-old whip someone’s arse with a shotgun?

Well, it starts with taking a wide, well-balanced stance, and not choking down too far on the barrel.  Then you have to remember that you don’t need a home run; you just have to make good contact.

So what have we learned from this story?  First, even at 82, Herb can still go yard! 

Second, just as the leftist thug who attacked Kyle Rittenhouse in Kenosha learned not to bring a skateboard to a rifle fight, Harold Runnels learned not to bring a knife to a shotgun fight.      

Finally, in the feel-good story of February, Breitbart’s headline caught my eye: “Accidental Blast During Bomb-Making Class Kills 30 Taliban Fighters.”

It seems that a clot of happy-go-lucky jihadis had gathered in a mosque (where else?) in the Afghan village of Qultaq to learn the finer points of blowing people up.  Even though the crowd included “six foreign nationals who were expert mine makers,” it apparently also included at least one dim-witted lummox who hadn’t yet gotten to the Koranic verses on the subject of, “Don’t touch that wire!”

(Preliminary reports that the dullard in question was one Ahmed al-Biden have not been confirmed.)

The story notes that jihadis fairly regularly experience such mortifying examples of the male scourge of premature detonation. (HA!)  For example, “a similar blast occurred at a mosque in Balkh’s Chahabar Bolak district in August.” 

Also in the village of Sikandar Khel, and earlier in the Ghazni district, and in the southern province of Zabul.

So what can we learn from this hilarious vignette? 

First, all Afghan place names have apparently been translated from the original Klingon.

Second, one way to promote the idea that your religion is super peaceful might be to stop using your places of worship as combination ammo dumps/demolition schools.  

Third, don’t be discouraged, jihadis!  Remember the sura that goes, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try– KA-BLAM!

Thus ends today’s lesson.

RIP, Rush.

Avenatti/Reza “not the Jesus-Lion” Aslan 2024!

In my last column, I mentioned three people I admire (Ron DeSantis, Denzel Washington and Thomas Sowell).  Today, I turn to three people I disdain.

Mitt Romney

There are a few things in life that I am not good at; one of the worst is admitting when I’ve been wrong about something. 

In my defense, that is mainly because I’ve not had much practice at being wrong.  After more than a half-century spent being almost constantly right about everything, it’s disorienting when it turns out I was mistaken. 

I can still remember the day in 2^nd grade when I found out that I’d been singing the line from “God Bless America” wrong.  It’s the one that goes, “stand beside me, and guide me/ through the night with the light from above.” 

I had been singing, “through the night, with the light, from a bulb.”  Which, I would argue, makes perfect sense.  (See?  I’m not good at this.)

I also remember that until about age 12, I thought girls were really gross.  Then I saw a young Sophia Loren at the height of her powers, climbing out of the Mediterranean in a clingy shirt in a tv re-run of Boy on a Dolphin.  So mea maxima culpa on that one.

Also, I was in college before I found out that there is only one “r” in “sherbet.”  Everyone I knew called it “sher-bert.”  So thanks a lot, friends and relatives in Marseilles, Illinois in the 1970s.

To mention a more current example, next month I will have been married for 32 years, and during that time my wife and I have had 367 arguments, and I’m like 364 and 2, with one tie.   (I still say the socialist relative I threw out of my house until he apologized is going to come crawling back some day with a mea culpa, so that one is technically yet to be determined.)  

I’m practically the Rocky Marciano of martial fights, is what I’m saying.  And sure, my wife would probably disagree with that stat.  But as you might gather from my marital fight record, she’s wrong a lot. 

For example, in the first decision we each made in our marriage, I decided to marry her, and she decided to marry me.  So right there, I’m up on her 2-to-zip.

Anyway, the last time I was wrong was in 2012, when I – and these words are getting caught in my throat somehow, even though I’m typing them – enthusiastically voted for Mitt Romney.  

I know, I know.  He wasn’t nearly conservative enough for my taste, or likely for yours. 

But almost nobody is.  Reagan and Milton Friedman are dead.  Margaret Thatcher and Friedrich Hayek are dead, and they weren’t US citizens.   And Thomas Sowell and Victor Davis Hanson won’t run. 

So I thought that of the choices we had, Mitt would be a good one.  McCain had been pathetically eager to roll over in 2008, and after four disastrous years of Obama, I thought the time was right for someone like Romney.  Public opinion polling – and countless yammering focus groups — had suggested that people really, really wanted centrist competence more than combative partisanship. 

We’d get that with Mitt, and even if he was a semi-invertebrate RINO, he couldn’t help but be two standard deviations better than Barry O and his toxic combination of arrogance, incompetence, and disdain for America.

Here’s where I went wrong.   I thought that Romney had run MA as a mushy moderate, barely right of center governor because he’d had to.  The reality is that there are (tragically) a lot of purple or light-blue states in the country, and if we’re going to have any elected GOP congressmen or senators or governors in those states, they’re going to have to be lukewarm moderates. 

Susan Collins is a good example.  Maine is a blue-ish state, and with a 50/50 senate split, I’m more than happy to have her in the senate, rather than running a rock-ribbed conservative who would lose, and thus give us one more Dem senator. 

But Romney has since shown himself to be a particularly contemptible sort of Republican, because he’s fundamentally dishonest.  He didn’t govern as a RINO squish in MA because he had to to get elected.  Now he’s a Senator from Utah, for crying out loud!  He could be an actual conservative like he pretended to be – in fact, he’d be rewarded for it!  But he’s not that guy.

He only pretended to be.

Maybe the worst part is that he’s not even too genteel to have the stomach for a political fight.  That’s been the fallacy that a lot of moderates have pushed:  Bush 41 and 42 and McCain and Romney and dozens of other GOP office-holders were gentlemen, unwilling to get down in the mud and trade punches with the Dem sleaze merchants who always take the low road.

But they were lying about that, because since then, most of them have shown little compunction about attacking Trump, or other conservatives.  I still think well of W as a person, but you could not get him to slam Bill Clinton or Barack Obama, and he could barely manage to criticize Gore or Kerry, even when he was running against them! 

But somehow he was willing to throw mud at Trump, going so far as to say that he wouldn’t vote for him, even against creeps like Cankles McPantsuit or Joey Gaffes.  As I’ve said before, Trump had some big flaws, and in the abstract, I can respect someone who was too offended by them to support him. 

But the Bushes and the Romneys lambasted Trump for his lies, while staying mute about Barack “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor” Obama.

They were terribly offended that Trump spoke in crudely sexual terms about women, but they never expressed any public thoughts about Bill Clinton groping every female within arm’s length and raping Juanita Broderick, or Joe Biden digitally penetrating at least one female supporter.

Romney watched Bill Clinton turn the Oval Office into a combination brothel and illicit campaign fundraising boiler room.  He watched Obama use the IRS to oppress and silence his domestic political opponents, while paying off mullahs in Iran and standing by while jihadi thugs attacked a US consulate and murdered our ambassador.   He stood mute while Joe Biden said that he – Romney – wanted to enslave black Americans! 

He didn’t get mad.   He didn’t get offended.  And he never suggested impeaching Clinton or Obama, and – spoiler alert — he’ll never EVER suggest impeaching Biden.

But he’s taking a brave stand now.   Because Trump has a big mouth and said some stupid things, Marshmallow Mitt has drawn his line in the sand, and is supporting the baying mob of leftist hypocrites who are ramming through second baseless impeachment of a GOP president. 

I don’t think it’s too much to ask of politicians that they be consistent.  If you’re a rough-elbows brawler type, then sure, brawl with those on your side of the aisle who you think are wrong, just like you brawl with the opposition.  And if you’re a conciliatory diplomat, then be diplomatic with your own side and the opposition. 

But Romney – and many other RINOs – are the worst of both worlds: spineless and obsequious with the leftists, yet willing to turn on and attack conservatives at every opportunity.

I can’t help but think of the words of John — not McCain, but the Revelator — who said in disgust, “Because you are lukewarm – neither hot nor cold – I will spew you out of my mouth.” 

That’s what Mitt Romney is to me.  He seems like a decent and loving family man, and his business and executive accomplishments are untainted by any hint of scandal or unethical achieved some impressive accomplishments in his life, but he’s a human political spit take. 

Someone in the Utah GOP – please, I’m begging you! – primary that guy!

Bruce Springsteen is a very talented songwriter and musician, and I’ve gotten a great deal of enjoyment out of his music over the years.  His music made up part of the soundtrack to my young adulthood, and the album Nebraska is one of my top 10 favorites of all time. 

And yet he is a colossal, hypocritical d-bag.  I thought his Jeep commercial during the Super Bowl was simultaneously great and nauseating. 

Removed from its context – i.e. without Springsteen’s (and the Democrat party for whom he is a spokes-celebrity’s) long-standing record of sleazy smears and immoral Machiavellian tactics – it is well done, and even stirring.   The stark, wintry scenery evokes a nostalgia within me for my Illinois childhood.  The script, calling for unity, and laced with Biblical imagery and allusion, resonates. 

(By the way, did you notice how the usual legion of hateful leftist Christophobes™ were somehow able to not be triggered by all of that nasty religious stuff?  Why, it’s almost like they’ve sold their soul to Saul Alinsky, and can’t be trusted to react honestly to literally anything!)

But of course the ad DOES come with all of that context… which ruins it completely.  It’s more than galling to see a malicious rhetorical bomb-thrower like Springsteen wax eloquent on how we all need to unified, and respect each other.

His ersatz good will is as phony as his cowboy boots and hat.  And for that matter, the idea that a disdainful leftist like him would be caught dead driving around in a jeep and lighting a candle in a church in the middle of flyover country.

I like to imagine the army of CO readers, as they watched that video, having the natural reaction.

Hey, Mr. Boss.  They’re not saying, “Bruuuuuuuce,  Bruuuuuuce!” 

They’re booing you.

Finally, we have Virginia Heffernen.

She’s the small-minded lefty columnist and New Yorker who wrote an ultra-creepy column about a terrible thing her Trump-supporting neighbors did to her.

Did they egg her house? Spray-paint a Confederate flag on her garage door?  Force a maga hat down onto the innocent head of her crying toddler?

No.  They shoveled her snowy driveway for her.

Those b*stards!  

I’m sure you’ve all read the story by now.  She compares neighbors who performed an unrequested favor for her to the anti-Semitic terrorist group Hezbollah, anti-Semitic loon Louis Farrakhan, and… wait for it… the Nazis!

Yes.  The Nazis.  Because if there is one thing they were known for, it was their vaunted “shovel-krieg.”  (Which I believe is German for “lightning-fast snow-removal war.”)  I know Anne Frank’s family was constantly complaining about how if it snowed even an inch or two, the pesky National Socialists had their driveway cleaned off before you could say, “Arbeit Macht Ice-Frei.”

I know: bad taste.  Also, too soon.  But I’m not the one comparing thoughtful neighbors to Nazis!

Unfortunately, this hate-twisted lady is all-too typical of a leftist mindset you can see from Biden on down.  Their talking points are all “unity this” and “civility that,” but they despise half the country, and repay kindness with contempt.

The only appropriate response is to defeat them in elections, and pray that they get well soon.

In the meantime, we should rent a small fleet of trucks, transport many tons of snow to Heffernen’s house, and then dump that snow all over her driveway, house and yard. 

And over her, if she happens to be outside.

Avenatti/ Virginia ”Get off my driveway” Heffernen  2024!

I could easily spend this column talking about all the stuff that has immediately started going terribly wrong with the fledgling Biden administration. 

For example, Hacky Psaki™ is already drawing ridicule from even the far-left media, for her constant refrain of “I’m going to circle back on that.” to even the simplest questions.  AOC is telling fabulous tales of that time she was almost killed because she was four blocks away from a building where a handful of idiots wearing Viking horns broke in and took selfies and made scary noises. 

And after nearly four years of explicitly inciting their mouth-breathing followers to physically attack all elected Republicans, the Democrats in congress are gearing up to impeach a former president because he supposedly incited some of his followers to violently attack Democrats… in a speech in which he literally said, “March down to the capitol and patriotically and PEACEFULLY protest.” 

As I say, I could easily talk about that stuff. 

I could, for example, compare the Biden administration getting out of the gates to the start of an ill-fated horse race.  One in which the gun sounded, spooking several of the horses into throwing their riders and then trampling them to death, while several of the other horses sprang forward, collided with each other and went down in a cacophony of snapped fetlocks and equine screaming, and in which the lead horse, just as it was breaking away from the pack, somehow burst into flames. 

Even though horses are normally pretty reliably known to not be the least bit flammable. 

I could write about that stuff, and much more.  But I’m not going to.  Because it’s a Monday, in the mid-winter of our discontent, and I want to focus on something positive, in the form of three public figures I admire.   You might not be surprised that one of them is a thinker and writer.  But the other two are from very unlikely fields: one politician, and one actor.

When it comes to professions, even the famously low-status ones don’t strike me as worse than politicians.  I’ve bought several cars from used car dealers that weren’t total lemons.  I’ve employed a few lawyers over the years, and none of them tried to double-bill me for time they spent with hookers.  Speaking of which, even though – and I cannot stress this enough – I have NO first-hand experience with hookers, I’ve been told that they at least allow one to do to them what our politicians routinely do to us.

But let’s not let the 95% of terrible politicians give the other 5% a bad name. 

And one of those 5% is the governor of my state, Ron DeSantis.  A veteran, military lawyer and congressman, DeSantis just barely won in 2018, defeating far-left incompetent Andrew Gillum.   

In a lot of ways, DeSantis’ election was the opposite of the heartbreaking razor-thin losses in 2020, in which equally terrible far-left creeps like Ossoff and Warnock and Biden and Harris managed to win.  And in the ensuing two years, the judgment of the voters in electing DeSantis has been richly rewarded. 

Though not especially telegenic or charismatic, DeSantis has demonstrated the positive qualities of Trump – he governs like a conservative, is impervious to leftist criticism, and doesn’t back down from any political fights – while avoiding the negative characteristics of Trump.  He’s not bombastic, and he’s disciplined, and he aims his fire at the real opposition, rather than at his own feet. 

And the results speak for themselves.  When the MSM were shrieking that Florida would soon be a covid deathscape – and never mind those blue states, where wannabe-dictators destroyed their economies, oppressed the working class and churchgoers, and produced death rates much higher than Florida’s – DeSantis stood his ground.  He trusted the citizens to assess the real risks of the virus, and take appropriate precautions, and run their own lives, free from enforced micro-management from a bullying government. 

To pick just one almost laboratory-perfect example, consider the two Disney theme parks in America.  The one in deep-blue CA, ruled by Ken-Doll Newsom and an arrogant army of leftist poke-noses, has been closed for almost a year.  Tens of thousands of employees have been unemployed, millions of children’s Disney vacation dreams have been dashed, and the streets of Disneyland have been occupied only by tumbleweeds.

And they are partially charred tumbleweeds, since half the state has been intermittently on fire, thanks to suicidally stupid, far-left mismanagement of forests and the electrical grid.

Florida’s Disney park, by contrast, re-opened in early July, after only 4 months of closure.  For those of you without a calendar nearby, that’s around 7 months ago.   And you’d better believe that if there were mounds of bodies stacked up like cordwood all over Orlando because of the great covid Disney die-off, the MSM would be shouting that story to the rafters.  (By the way, “The Great Covid Disney Die-Off” had the worst box office of any Pixar production ever!)

But alas, there was no horrendous Florida corona-pacalypse.  Only hundreds of thousands of employed people, hundreds of millions of dollars flowing into the hands of Floridians and their well-run state government, and millions of happy children.  Oh, the humanity! 

And the last half-year has only seen the wisdom of electing DeSantis become more obvious.  He oversaw a clean and well-run election, and by 11:00 on election night, the world knew who won in Florida.  He has stood up to big tech censorship, and almost alone among GOP pols is aggressively fighting back against the dishonest, power-hungry censors who did everything they could to tilt the 2020 electoral playing field.    

And how has his narrowly defeated leftist rival been conducting himself since the election?  Well, he’s been hard at work, studying and making political connections, and preparing himself for another run.

If by “hard at work” you mean “getting caught in a seedy hotel room with a male prostitute and a dazzling array of illegal drugs.”  I am not making that up.   When the cops arrived, the hooker was overdosing on meth, and Gillum was nude, intoxicated and vomiting in the bathroom.  (In other words, he was truly the “Florida Man” you’re always reading about in the tabloids.)

Because Gillum is a Democrat, and graduated from the “Bill Clinton School of Honest Confession,” his statement was a classic example of the genre.   Gillum said, “I was in Miami last night for a wedding celebration when first responders were called to assist one of my friends.”

Because who amongst us doesn’t traditionally celebrate weddings by ingesting a festive cocktail of drugs and alcohol, and ending up naked and puking on a hotel bathroom floor, after paying one of our “friends” to have sex with us?

Let he who is without sin among you cast the first vomit-flecked meth rock!  

The actor I admire is Denzel Washington.  He’s the type who is always worth watching, even if he’s in a movie that isn’t great.  And most of his movies are very good, usually with a moral center, and  without a political axe to grind.  In a time when half the movies go out of their way to insult and slander conservatives and religious people, I haven’t seen Washington do that.

He’s been outspoken about his Christian faith, and though he supported Obama, he’s been very circumspect about politics, pointedly not insulting conservatives or bashing Trump.   In the leftist-dominated, censorious atmosphere of Hollywood, I usually assume that anyone who doesn’t wear his leftist principles on his sleeve is likely a closet conservative.

That assumption got some support from an interview he recently gave to the lefties at Yahoo Entertainment. When asked about how he sees cops and the military, he said, “I have the utmost respect for what they do, for what our soldiers do, [people] that sacrifice their lives. I just don’t care for people who put those kind of people down. If it weren’t for them, we would not have the freedom to complain about what they do.”

Not too many years ago, that would have been a typical sentiment, mouthed even by the celebrities who didn’t believe it, just out of social and career pressure.  Today, sadly, it takes courage to say it, and I admire Denzel for doing so!

Finally, Thomas Sowell is 90 years old, and a national treasure.   A skilled writer and a clear, logical thinker, Sowell has written more books than the entire Island of Misfit Toys that is the Biden administration has read.  He’s written about taboo topics like race and politics with a combination of erudition and blunt, honest common sense that is well nigh irrefutable.  So the left virtually never tries to refute him, preferring either to ignore him, or smear him.

The latter is made considerably more difficult because Sowell is black, but that doesn’t stop the charlatans who make a living fanning racial flames. I can only imagine the kind of courage it takes to be a black conservative, especially when your first name is Thomas!  I’m sure the racial arsonist leftists all think they’re brilliant when they roll out the “Uncle Tom” charge against him.

If you haven’t read Sowell, you really owe it to yourself.  The Vision of the Anointed and A Conflict of Visions are personal favorites of mine, but you can’t go wrong with anything Sowell writes.  In addition to the cogent analysis, you’ll find bon mots on every page.  He is a smart, brave adult in an academy full of blinkered, cowardly juveniles.  

Reading Thomas Sowell is the anti-dote to reading trendy hucksters like Ibram X Kendi, Ta-Nehisi “gesundheit” Coates or Robin DiAngelo.  In an interview or debate, when he’s given a tough question, there’s one reply I’ll guarantee you will never hear Thomas Sowell utter:

“I’m going to have to circle back on that.”

Avenatti/Ta-Nehisi 2024!

A lot of terrible things have happened throughout history in the month of January.  Hitler seized power in January (1933).  So did Castro (1959).  So did Pol Pot (1976).  The space shuttle Challenger exploded (1986).  Nancy Pelosi was born in Mesopotamia (2213 B.C.).

Saxons called January the “wolf month,” because hungry wolves would come into their towns searching for food this time of year.

So, yeah.  That’s January.  Many horrible leftists seizing power, fiery explosions, and ravenous predators coming to town to torment regular folks and scavenge their resources. 

Sound familiar?

But I’m not going to talk about that depressing stuff.  Because I’m a cautious optimist, and an Ameri-can, not an Ameri-can’t.   And because we need to laugh at the many small stories that can sometimes escape our notice.  Stories like these:

1.Alec Baldwin’s wife’s hilarious self-owning.  

I generally find Alec Baldwin to be a charming and talented comic actor.  Until he opens his mouth about politics.  Then he reveals that he’s a gigantic horse’s Schumer. 

But it turns out that his wife is even more unhinged.  For years she has been pretending to be a Latina, writing about how she first came to the US from Mallorca to attend college, speaking with an unconvincingly intermittent Spanish accent – once feigning a struggle to remember the English word “cucumber” – and calling herself “Hilaria.”

But it turns out she was born in Boston, from a family who traces its American roots to before the Revolution.  And her real name is “Hillary Hayward-Johnson.” 

“Oh,” you are probably thinking, “Of the Sinaloa Hayward-Johnsons?”

Sadly, no.

What is it about white leftists that makes them want to pretend to be ethnic minorities?  If it’s not blue-eyed blonde Rachel Dolezal perming her hair and faking her way into a leadership position in the NAACP, or blue-eyed blonde Elizabeth Warren waxing nostalgic about her youth spent riding bareback across the plains in her buckskin dress (#wemustneverstopmockingher), it’s Hillary Baldwin reminiscing about holidays spent wearing a sombrero and whacking at a – how you say? – pinata.

How much respect would I lose from all of you if I suddenly adopted the phony-as-Comma-la persona of exotic Latin lothario “Martino,” with my smoldering good looks and theek accent?   

A lot of respect, I’m guessing.  But never fear: I would never squander the bond I’ve built with you on such ridiculous contrivances.

And that’s why I’ll always remain your plain ol’ exotic white lothario “Martin,” with my middling looks and perfect Midwestern accent.  You’re welcome.   

2. Tacoma cop earns the “French Connection Good Driver Award” for running over a few violent idiots who were begging to be run over. 

If you haven’t seen the video yet, you should.  It’s the same story that unfolded many times this past year, when peaceful rioters would attack some innocent motorist in a car, pounding on the roof, smashing windows, and jumping on the hood.  And then, sometimes, the driver would (gloriously!) hit the gas and go all “Smokey and the Dimwit” on the rioters, tossing them into the air as he drove to freedom.

Sorry.  That’s “bandit.”  “Smokey and the Bandit.”

There were two novel twists in this story: 1. The vehicle involved was a police SUV, which it turns out has the additional heft required to dish out some serious Darwin-award-winning justice to any brain-dead biped who stupidly made a frontal assault on it. And 2. This time, the violent crowd had gathered to engage in super-dangerous street racing, rather than the usual leftist hobbies of hating America, tearing down statues, and vandalizing property. 

On the bright side, after dozens of bogus anti-police accusations, we finally do have an example of a cop being race-ist.  (Boom!)

One violent thug chose stupidly enough that he ended up falling in front of the car as it justifiably sped away, in the process turning himself into a human speed bump.  So trigger warning if you decide to find the video, because that image is hard to watch.  Also, the audio is irritating, with repeated screams of profanity and unjustified anger from the mob.  

On the other hand, you could watch the video the way I did: Turn the sound off, and create your own soundtrack.  As speed-bump-boy starts whacking on the car, sing softly to yourself, “I’m breakin’ rocks   in the [pause] hot sun; I fought the law, and the law [pause] THUMP-THUMP!”

3.  In an omen of what’s to come in the disastrous next four years, Joey Gaffes fired the White House usher on inauguration day.  A few hours later, after he’d been sworn in, Biden and non-doctor Jill waved to a crowd and dramatically turned to the White House doors… and then stood there like addled mopes.

Because they’d fired the usher, one of whose duties was to open doors for them.

They stood there for a long, confused time, before someone finally opened the doors.  The video I saw was shot from an angle that partially blocked the door, so I can’t be sure that Biden spent that time repeatedly pulling on the door that needed to be pushed.

But c’mon man.  You know that is what happened.

4.  Biden’s new political hack press secretary Jen Psaki – and if I’m the first one to call her “Hacky Psaki,” I trademark that term, right now – gave a frighteningly clueless answer to a question about whether the WH is concerned about the Game Stop stock-shorting panic.

I’m sure you’ve all read CO’s insightful discussion of that, and thus know more about it than Jen Psaki ever will.  This particular reporter asked what the WH plans to do, and ended with “…and have there been any discussions with the SEC about how to proceed?”  

Psaki’s response, which I swear to you I am not making up: “Well, I’m also happy to repeat that we have the first female treasury secretary and a team that’s surrounding her, and often questions about the market we’ll send to them.”   

It’s times like these when I wish I could get within 100 miles of a WH press conference.  Because if I were in that room, I’d do my best to ask the next question: “I just re-read the transcript of my colleague’s previous question, and I was surprised to see that it was not ‘Can you give us a genitalia census of the Biden officials who will be dealing with this stock market instability?’ Since that is the question you answered.” 

“And by the way, I’m sure we all send our congratulations to Janet Yellin on what we assume are her absolutely top-notch lady parts.  Now, getting back to the question of what you numbskulls are planning to do about the stock shorting issue?”

5. In one more glaring example of breathtaking media bias, Kamala Harris’ step-daughter Ella Emhoff has signed what is being called “a ludicrous modeling contract.”

Sorry.  That’s “lucrative modeling contract.”

Now Emhoff is a civilian, and I’m no head-turner myself, so I’m not going to attack her for accepting that contract.  But a quick search will reveal a dozen pictures of her. 

If any of those pics were put into a photo line-up with the driver’s license photos of a dozen randomly chosen women, and if a group of people were offered $1,000,000 to pick the professional model from that line-up…? 

Let’s just say that I would not be reluctant to put up the million.

Remember: Melania Trump is a world-class smoke-show – and, literally, a SUPER MODEL! — and as First Lady was not given a single magazine cover, let alone a modeling gig.  

But Ella Emhoff is now a professional model.

Well done, main stream media!

6. Finally, Dr. Fauci has taken his campaign to be the least credible doctor since Jill Biden to another level. 

In a January 25th interview,  Fauci explained that since one mask catches some droplets, it is “only common sense,” that two masks would catch even more droplets. 

To re-cap, last March Fauci said that we should not wear masks.  By May, he said that we should all wear a mask.  Eight months later, he is saying that we should all wear two masks. 

I’m no mathematician, but a few quick calculations tell me that by a year from this Christmas, Fauci will be telling each of us to wear 14 masks.  

In addition to not being a mathematician, I am also not a physician.  But I put my magical wizard hat on and did a little cogitating, and I’ve come up with the invention that is going to win me the Nobel Prize for medicine: the Simpson Droplet Impermeability Membrane, or SDIM.

Here’s my thought: Obviously, a cloth mask only catches some droplets.  But you know what would catch ALL droplets? 

That’s right: a plastic bag.  

And before you can object, I know what you’re thinking, and I’m one step ahead of you. 

“Martino,” you were thinking, “your plastic bag idea is pure genius!  But once you pulled the bag over your head, couldn’t some droplets still escape from underneath the bag?”

Of course they could.  And that’s why deploying the SDIM consists of more than just putting a bag on someone’s head.  (If you just thought of a joke involving Ella Emhoff, I am very disappointed with you.)

No, the SDIM is a MSCTS (that’s right: a multi-stage, contagion-thwarting system).  Which is why the bag comes with a sturdy plastic zip-tie. 

The rest is obvious.  Unfold the plastic bag and pull it down over your head, tugging the bottom of it down around your neck.  Then cinch the zip tie firmly, just above your Adam’s apple, and lie back and enjoy the peace of mind that comes from the complete absence of deadly covid droplets.

A sensation of light-headedness and the graying of your vision tells you that it’s working!

I am so confident in the efficacy of the SDIM that I give you this guarantee: no one who uses the SDIM will ever die of covid, even though mendacious government bureaucrats will probably say they did.

Avenatti/Hacky Psaki, 2024!

I’ll be honest with you: I didn’t watch a minute of live tv on inauguration day, because I knew what I would have seen if I’d watched.  A sickeningly obsequious media, a doddering old man slurring his way through a string of banalities projected in very large print on a teleprompter, and some of the worst people in North America elated by the triumph of a noxious ideology over the imperfectly realized but heartfelt ideals of our great nation. 

Though it felt more like a Lamentations kind of day, my thoughts actually went to the famous passage from Ecclesiastes (or, as Joey Gaffes calls it, “eckle-stopholeese. Sorry, expialidocious.  You know, you know the thing.  The one right before the Palms.”):

“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.”

And for me, Wednesday was a time to mourn, and a time to cast away stones, and a time to vow to lick ‘em tomorrow.  Also a time to watch 8 hours of HGTV shows on the DVR, and to drink Scotch, and to mourn some more.

So when I woke up Thursday – mostly sober, with a yard full of stones, and knowing how to renovate a cramped and tired single-story into an open floorplan with a chef’s kitchen and a farmhouse sink – I cautiously dipped into a few podcasts and websites I trust, and got a glimpse of the tragicomic farce that was the inauguration of Joe Biden.  

I was sad to see that once again, so many violent conservatives raged out of control, showing grave disrespect for a new president’s inauguration.  Here are some excerpts from the Reuters story I read on Thursday:

“Black-clad activists among hundreds of demonstrators protesting Biden’s swearing-in clashed with police a few blocks from the White House, in an outburst of violence rare for an inauguration.  At least 217 people were arrested in the melees, police said.

The burst of civil disorder followed a fierce presidential campaign that left the country divided.  In the violence, knots of activists in black clothes and masks threw rocks and bottles at officers wearing riot gear, who responded with volleys of tear gas and stun grenades as a helicopter hovered low overhead.

At one flash point, a protester hurled an object through the passenger window of a police van, which sped away in reverse as demonstrators cheered.  Multiple vehicles were set on fire, including a black limousine. A knot of people dragged garbage cans into a street a few blocks from the White House and set them ablaze…”

Oh, I’m sorry.  Those were not actual quotes from a real Reuter’s story about Biden’s inauguration last week – they were actual quotes from a real Reuter’s story about Trump’s inauguration 4 years ago.  (The only edit I made was changing Trump’s name to “Biden” in the first sentence.)

Thanks to the MSM’s egregious bias, I’d forgotten that that even happened.  This January 6^th is a day that will go down in infamy because of the Democrat-lite violent actions of a few hundred bonehead Trump supporters, but there will be no comment on millions of leftists looting and rioting for 6 months all across the country. 

Don’t forget it: in the very first hours of the Trump presidency, violent leftist thugs were already committing assaults, arson and property damage, and hundreds had to be arrested. 

But some goofball wearing Viking horns broke into a government building, so we had to have a grim, militarized inauguration in the middle of a mostly empty capitol.

That being said, the mood was just about appropriate to the sadness of what was happening.  Though the MSM lickspittles declared that there were no cheering crowds only because of covid, does anybody really believe that? 

Or is the more logical explanation that NO ONE is enthusiastic about Joe Biden, and he couldn’t draw a crowd to save his life?  (Which explains why all summer, when leftists were turning out by the tens of thousands for daily “We hate America!” riots and “Criminals are our heroes!” rages, Biden was talking to dozens of misfits and misanthropes in a series of strip mall parking lots, and being continually startled when they honked their horns each time he made it through a paragraph without collapsing.)

There were barricades, and empty streets, and some terrible slam poetry. 

And by the way, you can track America’s decline through the quality of poetry associated with presidents.  Walt Whitman wrote four poems about the death of Lincoln (among them “O Captain, My Captain” and “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”) that are still worth reading today. 

Gifted poet Robert Frost read his poem, “The Gift Outright” at JFK’s inauguration. 

Over 30 years later, mediocre poet (at best) Maya Angelou wrote a mediocre piece for Bill Clinton’s inauguration.  It is justifiably forgotten now, but I remember banal repetitions of “a rock, a river, and a tree.”  Poetry interpretation is subjective, but my take was that Slick Willie liked to take his interns to picnic at a river, where he was hard as a rock and they ended up climbing a tree to get away from him. 

But I’m more of a prose guy, so that might be way off.

Anyway, Biden’s inaugural poem was delivered by an unknown young woman, and of course the media is now swooning over her, and she’ll probably get rich and famous over this “poem.”

But, to paraphrase a line attributed to Dorothy Parker, this isn’t a poem to be set aside lightly.  It should be thrown with great force.

Here are three consecutive lines from the poem, chosen at random:

“We’ve braved the belly of the beast, we’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace.

And the norms and notions of what just is isn’t always justice.

And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it, somehow we do it.”

Off the top of my head: “the belly of the beast” is a tired cliché; “beast” and “peace” don’t rhyme; “just is” and “justice” don’t rhyme; the third line changes verb tense in a way that doesn’t make sense.  (By the way, my last sentence rhymed better than anything in this terrible poem.)  Also, there is no referent for the “it” in the last line – what can that line possibly mean? 

On the other hand, “knew it” and “do it” at least rhyme, even if they are stupid.

Good lord!  At the rate we’re going, if Comma-la manages to get re-elected in 2024, her inaugural poem is going to start with, “There once was a man from Nantucket.”

I know that some of you are probably thinking, “Sure, Martin, you may be a hilarious genius, an amazing father and husband, and a role model for us all, not to mention a fine figure of a man.  But you’re no poet, and you probably couldn’t do any better.” 

To which I say, hold my Scotch and stand back, as I compose a poem – live, right now, this very minute — that is more fitting for the inauguration of Joe Biden than the actual putrid poem above: 

Ode to Joe

C’mon man, he’s got a plan.

Look fat–  don’t question that.

You know, the thing,

Ring a ding ding.

He defeated Corn Pop

Zippity boop bop.

Don’t give him a quiz:

he don’t know where he is.

Stay in your lanes

Or he’ll put y’all back in chains.

Even Frank Luntz

Knows he’s a dunce.

Boom!  Admit it: you feel pretty foolish right now for doubting me.  Because that poem has all the hallmarks of deathless verse: the lines all rhyme, it works on multiple levels, and it contains a subtle allusion to Frank Luntz. 

Where was I?  Oh yeah, our long national nightmare, just getting started.

Two more details struck me about inauguration day:

Remember when Tucker Carlson mispronounced Comma-la’s name, and a thousand leftist dimwits assailed him as racist for making such a heinous mistake? 

Imagine my amusement when I heard the audio of our most mediocre Supreme Court justice — Sotomayor — swearing in that fake-laughing goon as VP.  Because you guessed it: she pronounced “Kamala” incorrectly, the same way Tucker did.

Who would have guessed that such a wise Latina woman would turn out to be such a vicious, horrible racist?  I say we move to impeach immediately.

Finally, in a move that I’m afraid sets the table for much more of the same to come, a few hours after Joey Gaffes signed an executive order mandating that everyone wear a mask on federal land, he went to the Lincoln Memorial.  Which is on federal land. 

And what was Joey wearing?  No, not a vacant expression.

Well, yes.  That’s his look.

 But let me rephrase that: What was he NOT wearing?  If you guessed “pants,” you probably had a 50/50 chance of being right.  But in this case, it was a mask.

When a reporter called out, “Where’s your mask?” Biden leapt and spun around, startled, and said, “Who are you?  Where am I?”  When he noticed the statue of Lincoln out of the corner of his eye, he leapt in the opposite direction, and said, “Who is that?!  And why is he so huge?  Oh no!  Am I shrinking?!”

When an aide explained that he was not shrinking, and that the giant statue was of Lincoln — and then that it wasn’t a statue of Lincoln, Nebraska, but of Abraham Lincoln — Biden visibly calmed down.

Until a reporter called out, “You just made it illegal to be on federal land without a mask.  But you’re on federal land, and you don’t have a mask.”

Biden once again leapt in fright, and said, “Where am I?  What?  Who are you?”

The reporter said, “I’m a reporter, and you’re breaking the law by not wearing a mask.”

And Biden raised his hands and felt his wrinkly, unmasked face, and shouted, “Ahhh!  Arrest me!”

Then Dr. Jill took him by the hand, and pulled him toward the stairs.  “Let’s go home.  You need to get a good night’s sleep so you’ll be ready to get up tomorrow and start wrecking the country.”

And, scene.

Look on the bright side, people: we’ve survived 5 days.   Only 3 years and 360 days more.

Avenatti/Hunter Biden 2024!