Month: July 2021

First, Alan Paterson is a valuable member of CO Nation.  A frequent commenter, he’s the kind of value-adding type that I imagine CO was anticipating when he started this magical little corner of the internet.  Alan has a good eye and a sharp wit, and he enlivens any conversation that he adds to here.

Am I saying all that just because he hit my Tip Jar hard this week?  Truly, no.

But will I say right now that he’s also a handsome and a powerful man, with a personal magnetism that’s hard to deny, in some tiny, small part because of his generosity to me? 

Maybe, just a little.  Good on you, Alan, and thanks!

Okay, back to our regularly scheduled tomfoolery.

A few columns ago, I recounted my worst fears about the nascent Biden administration from back in January.  Although I think we’re living through a shite-fest veering between almost comical bumbling on one side and destructive mismanagement on the other, my worst fears have thus far not been realized.

It doesn’t look like the Dems will be packing the Supreme Court, or adding two more Dem-voting states, or nationalizing their election-corrupting voting practices.  If current predictions are accurate – and who knows? – the GOP has a reasonably good chance to take back the House and Senate in 2022, which will leave Biden with a very bad taste in his mouth.

I mean, if he weren’t clinically dead, and thus unable to taste anything.

But I want to take a step back, and instead of looking at the details of any specific political story right now, I’d like to consider a big-picture issue that is separating our two political parties, and promises to do so for some time into the future.

Republicans and conservatives are mostly connected to reality, and Democrats and leftists are mostly disconnected from it. 

I know that that’s at least a bit of an exaggeration.  And I don’t say it out of any great devotion to the GOP. 

I’m more conservative than I am Republican, and if you give me a stiff drink and a podium to stand behind, I could regale you for hours with a detailed recitation of my various complaints against the GOP, including but not limited to RINO candidates, spineless caving on one issue after another, squeamishness against returning a political punch, and etc.

But even with all that, I think most conservatives are very much in touch with reality, while many (if not most) leftists are radically estranged from it.  As Reagan (peace be upon him) famously put it, “The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.”

Examples abound.  In economics, Dems really think that the rich aren’t paying their fair share of taxes, and the poor and working middle class pay a much higher percentage.  (In reality, the evil top 1% pay more than a third of all federal income tax, and the top 10% pay over an astounding 70%, while the bottom 48% pay absolutely nothing.)  They believe that making it much harder to start businesses and create jobs will result in more businesses and more jobs. 

In science, they believe that pre-born babies are not pre-born babies, and also that male birthing persons can birth all of those non-baby babies.  They’re certain that we’re all going to be killed by global cooling or warming, or climate change or climate stasis, or an angry and vengeful Gaia. 

Also, if Bruce Jenner puts on a pair of ruby pumps and clicks his heels three times while chanting, “There’s no place like womb, there’s no place like womb,” he’s a girl now.  And also the most successful female athlete in the history of the Olympics.

In criminal justice, they believe that guns kill people, but killers don’t.  They believe that more than 10,000 unarmed black people are killed by cops each year (the real number is between 12-24).  They believe that white people alive today are morally responsible for the actions of the worst white people who lived two hundred years ago, but that non-white people who murdered people last Tuesday are not morally responsible for that.

They believe that socialism is the one true path to human advancement, and that once it is achieved everywhere, human nature will have been transformed, and the State will wither away, and pure, Edenic communism will be nirvana for all.

Also, religion is contemptible, and believers are morons. 

Looking back, I’m reminded of a February poll from Echelon Insights that asked Democrats what they are most concerned/worried about.  The answers are instructive.

In descending order, from most worried about, the top three answers were “Trump supporters, White nationalism, and systemic racism.” 

I suppose that your political opponents are always annoying to you: Biden and Obama supporters certainly have been to us!   But four years’ worth of Trump supporters certainly hadn’t racked up a record of violence or property destruction to rival that caused by either BLM or Antifa on any given weekend. 

Not to mention Hunter Biden with a snootful of meth and two Cardi B impersonators in an airport-adjacent Ramada Inn on any given weeknight.   

“White nationalism” barely exists at all, and has no national impact whatsoever.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: you could fit all of the white nationalists to be found in this nation of 330 million people into a medium sized community college gym.  And half of those would be undercover FBI agents “infiltrating” the Klan.

“Systemic racism” is a nebulous slur that can’t even be cogently defined without resorting to chilling tales of micro-aggressions and micro-expressions and that time when some old white lady gave the side-eye to Michelle Obama in a Baskin Robbins. 

Also on the list are “gun violence,” (but not the criminals who illegally use illegally gotten guns to visit violence on their communities), “domestic terrorism” (i.e. the goofball in the buffalo horns who took a selfie in front of Imhotep Pelosi’s desk and hurt a total of zero people), and “police brutality” (despite the fact, via Heather McDonald, that cops are 18 times more likely to be killed by black people as unarmed black people are to be killed by cops).

“Voter suppression” – which either doesn’t exist, or is a misspelling of “voting integrity” – makes the list at # 10. “Student debt” is #11.  And I think we can all agree that the only thing worse than jackbooted thugs forcing students to borrow money to drink and whore and come out with a grievance study degree is when those same thugs force those same hungover unemployables to pay that money back.

12 is “capitalism.”  I Schumer you not. 

That leaves a few truly bad things: Americans lacking health coverage, discrimination against LGBTQ folks, and sexism.  But it seems worth pointing out that those things are worse in all other countries, and absolutely nightmarish in more than half of them.

By my count, that list indicates that leftists are most worried about 8 things that either don’t exist or are molehills made into mountains, and 3 things that are less bad here than anywhere else.

In my next column, I’ll cover the worrisome items that make up the conservatives’ list.  

Spoiler alert: they all exist, and they’re all worth worrying about.

Spoiler alert #2: I’ll tell you what’s not on that list.  Alan Paterson.  Because that guy is the cat’s pajamas!      

Avenatti/Vengeful Gaia 2024!

Lately I’ve been savoring several events in the world of sports. 

For those who know me, and have a calendar, and can thus tell that it is not football season, that is a confusing statement. 

But it’s not that I’m enjoying any NBA or MLB games lately: it’s that I’m enjoying watching those hateful morons getting stomped in the ratings.  Every time Beijing LeBron opens his big stupid mouth, the NBA loses another rating point, and 3 billion dollars.  And it makes me happy.

But this week, something made me even happier.  It came in the form of and answer to what should be an unanswerable question:  What would it take to get me – America-loving Midwestern boy who was properly raised  – to root against the USA in the Olympics?

Well, earlier this week, the US women’s soccer team kneeled for the national anthem. 

Not the national anthem of Kazakhstan, or Wakanda, or Rhodesia.   The national anthem of the country they are supposed to be representing in the Olympics.    

Then they went out and got their ungrateful butts whipped by Sweden, 3-0.  To which the only reasonable response is, “HA! HA HA!  HAHAHAHA!!”

First, soccer is terrible, so we have no business fielding an American team.  Because the best-case scenario would seem to be that we win a medal. 

In soccer.

Which is akin to medaling in “watching paint dry” or “aimless running.” Or maybe “having a seizure that results in alarming twitching toward no good end.” 

I say that would “seem to be” the best-case scenario, because in reality, the best-case scenario would be to lose in the first round.  So that we could then hold our national heads up high, happy in the knowledge that we are not good at a sport that is not worthy of being played.  Or watched.  Or even called “a sport.”

But in this case, these unpatriotic wretches and their addle-pated fans really want to win at soccer.  So I’ve been brought to a place I thought I’d never go.

I actively rooted for a soccer team.  In this case, the Swedish soccer team. 

I feel strongly enough to do this even given the fact that my wife is of Norwegian descent, and she long ago informed me that the Swedes are the natural enemy of the Norwegians. 

I know: from the outside, that makes no sense.  Swedes and Norwegians would seem to be Scandanavian twins.  They occupy the same part of the world, have adorably ridiculous accents, and are all identically tall, blue-eyed blonde hotties.  Every straight male has at some point in his life fantasized about climbing Mt. Ingrid, and none of them, once they’ve “reached the summit” – see what I did there? – only to discover that said smoke-show was a Norwegian instead of a Swede, or vice versa, would ever be disappointed at the knowledge. 

But whatever.  In this case, even my Norwegian-American wife could temporarily overlook the eternal perfidy of the filthy Swedes and raise her fist in Nordic unity and celebration as the America-hating wenches on our soccer team went down to defeat. 

Even though I know next to nothing about soccer – because again: terrible sport – I understand that losing 3-0 is the equivalent of losing a baseball game by 9 or 10 runs, or losing a football game by three touchdowns.  Only way more boring. 

My schadenfreude is boosted even more by the knowledge that the most prominent woman on our soccer team – I know, that’s like being the most self-actualized person at the methadone clinic – is a little charmer named Megan Rapinoe. 

If you don’t know her, good for you.  You shouldn’t.  Because she’s a soccer player.

But if you do know her, it’s probably for her obnoxious, low-IQ political blathering over the last several years.  In 2019, she spear-headed a lawsuit against the US Soccer Federation – which is not something that should even exist! – claiming that female soccer players are paid less than male soccer players.

There is of course a gender pay gap in most pro sports.  However, it doesn’t arise from systemic sexism, but from two inescapable facts: men have physical advantages that make them better at almost all sports, and pro sports salaries mostly depend on the audience size of those sports, which is geometrically larger for most male sports. 

So Rapinoe’s whiny argument is wrong-headed from the start.  But then the bonehead compounded her error by picking the one sport in the history of the world in which women are paid more than men: soccer! 

That’s right.  A federal judge threw out the suit in 2020 on the grounds that between 2010-2018, women soccer players were paid more than men.  Sadly, the ruling did not include the judge forcing Rapinoe to turn over part of her salary to the poor, put-upon men who suffered from the toxic femininity of American soccer fans.

You may also know Rapinoe from her idiotic public arguments that there are no biological differences between men and women. 

Hilariously, she seemed to undermine that argument when she once played in a scrimmage that pitted professional women soccer players against an under-15 boys club team.  The boys won, 5-2.

I’m not making that up.  And I didn’t say that they were beaten by a bunch of 15-year-old boys.  They were beaten by a team of boys UNDER 15.  Which means that the savvy veterans on that boy’s team were 14, while the green recruits may have been toddlers, for all we know.

It’s a bad sign when the team that is beating you has to call a timeout so that several of their players can breastfeed, is what I’m saying.

Also, Rapinoe has dyed her hair purple.  Usually no comment would be necessary: young people often do goofy things with their appearance, and all of us have haircuts we look back on with a face-palm and a groan. 

But Rapinoe is not a tween going through a goth phase; she’s 36 years old.  (If I were not such a gentleman, I would note that it looks like those have been a rough 36 years, too.) 

But in this case, I love the purple hair.  Because in the pics of her frowning her way through the game and then walking off the field in defeat, the purple hair looks hilarious. 

It looks like Bozo the Clown getting whipped in straight sets by an unranked Ukrainian pre-teen at Wimbledon, and then he has to shake little Ruslana’s hand and walk off the court in disgrace, wearing those big floppy shoes and make-up.  The garishness of his look makes his loss even funnier.

(And yes, I did look up popular Ukrainian female names.  Because I do my research.)

Anyway, I understand that in Olympic soccer, one loss doesn’t eliminate you.  So here’s to the next team that Rapinoe’s Ingrates play, whether it’s from Swaziland, Brigadoon, or Katmandu.

We’re rooting for you, even if you come from a foreign country where your customs are silly, your native shoes are clunky and graceless, and your language is a series of clicks and whistles.  And even though you are playing a mundane, futile game that often ends in scoreless ties, we’ve got your back.

When your national anthem plays – even if it’s played on kazoos, by people with ludicrous facial hair and wearing fezzes  – we’ll do our best to click and whistle along with the words, to encourage you.  

And then, if you happen to notice our national anthem beginning, and you look across the field and see that the US team is kneeling, please fire off a few practice kicks in their direction. 

Aim for the dope with the purple hair.

Avenatti/ Moanin’ Megan Rapinoe 2024!

So this has been a strange week.  I didn’t post my usual Monday column, for a couple of reasons.  First, I’ve had a lot on my plate at work, to the extent that I’ve let petty concerns like providing sustenance for my family and Wonder Dog cloud my sense of what should always be my first priority: venting my spleen in columns for CO Nation.

So mea culpa on that one. 

But second, I cannot keep up with the firehose-strength gusher of scandals, gaslighting, and shenanigans, breaded with lies and then glazed with dementia that is the daily output of the Biden administration and the national Democrats.  

Consider these stories from just the last week:

It turns out that Biden’s nominee to run the Bureau of Land Management is an ecoterrorist who collaborated in the spiking of trees in the late 1980s.  This delightful practice is meant to damage logging equipment, and is extremely dangerous to loggers, who could easily be killed in the process of downing a tree that has been spiked. 

Thus this leftist extremist follows in a long line of narcissistic socialists who loudly proclaim their love for the working class, while at the same time working to bankrupt and/or maim them. 

Plus she’s got Debbie Wasserman-Schultz’s hairstyle, which alone should be sufficient probable cause to Baker Act her, pronto!

Meanwhile, down at our southern border, there are now more Mexican kids in cages than there are in Mexico City, and in all of the casts of Menudo combined! 

Yes, I just made that stat up.  But it’s probably still more reliable than anything coming out of the Biden administration, on any subject.

My favorite photo op of the month so far just surfaced from Qatar, where former Dem presidential candidate – and Fang Fang banger – Eric Swalwell was pictured shirtless, riding on a camel, during a trip funded by a Qatari trade group.  Which are well-known for their transparent, above-board financial dealings at all times. 

Hence the old cliché, “honest as a Qatari trade group.” 

I don’t even have a joke for that story.  I’m just glad when I can report that Eric Swalwell is on a different continent than us.

Ooh, I do have a joke:  He probably blamed the flatulence on the camel.

Moving on… to Cuba.  Where a bunch of know-nothing Cubans don’t seem to appreciate the Edenic blessings of a socialist dictatorship, the way their betters in the grievance major and White House staffer communities do.

It has been fun watching the MSM and the Dems – but I repeat myself – do their best to not acknowledge what the Cubans are upset about.  A few rogue reporters have managed to sneak in actual questions, and poor Jen Psaki has been flailing for an answer:

Reporter: Huge crowds of Cubans are holding signs saying “Libertad!”  What do you make of that?

Hacky Psaki:  They clearly want more vaccines.

Reporter: They are also carrying American flags, just like the ones that many Biden voters are fond of turning away from, dissing or burning.

Hacky Psaki: That’s just their way of expressing their approval of the Biden administration’s glorious progress on so many fronts.

Reporter:  What about the chants of, “C’mon hombre, Biden es muerte!” and “Senor Gaffes = Sabado y Domingo en Bernie’s”?

Hacky Psaki:  No more questions. 

While Psaki stutters her way through press conferences, our late president slurs his way through one hideously dishonest speech after another.  His latest assault on decency and common sense was on the topic of the election integrity laws that Republicans around the country are passing, and which he compared to the threat posed during the Civil War.   

He called the laws, “odious,” “pernicious,” “vicious,” and “unconscionable.” 

Actually, an anonymous minion with no self-esteem or moral compass put those words into the teleprompter.  But what came out through ol’ Joe’s clacking dentures sounded more like, “okey-doke, periwinkle, victor and unconscious.” 

He also compared January 6^th to the Confederacy, and clean voting laws to “21st-century Jim Crow.”  Joe might have lost a lot of cognitive ability, but he hasn’t lost the Democrats’ power of projection when it comes to race.

We get it, Dems.  In the 19^th century we whipped your butts and freed your slaves, and in the 20^th century we defeated your military wing (the KKK) and put an end to your central domestic policy (Jim Crow).  And you can tear down all of the statues of Lincoln and Grant you want, but you’ll never erase that history. Get over it!

Meanwhile across the pond, the BBC proved that it is at least not QUITE as bad as our MSM, by showing that there is a level of hateful anti-Semitism that is so bad that they will fire a “journalist” over it.

The journalist in question is a Palestinian based in Ramallah by the name of Tala Halawa.  (And if “Tala Halawa from Ramallah” isn’t a well-known Palestinian tongue-twister, it should be.) (Also, if I ever meet her, I’m going to say, “Hello, I’m Martin ‘Infidel’ Simpson.  Did you say your name was Hava Nagila?”  Just to get under her thin, hateful skin.)

It turns out that several years ago, among some of charming Tala’s tweets were such gems as, “Israel is more Nazi than Hitler!” and “#Hitlerwasright,” and “#IDFgotohell.”

I know: she sounds like she’d fit right in with Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, not to mention Al Sharpton and Screwy Louie Farrakhan and other raging anti-Semites that the Democrat party can’t quite bring themselves to condemn. 

Demonstrating that she’d also be a great fit at CNN or MSNBC, she said that her firing was caused by – hold on to your hat – the racism of the BBC.  She said that the criticism of her “seems familiar to me both as a Palestinian and as a woman of color.”

Not to mention a HUGE Hitler fan. 

She also claimed that she was fired for a “single offensive and ignorant tweet” … 3, 2, 1… Aaaaannnnd social media users then posted screens shots of tons of other hateful tweets from this hateful twit. 

Ta-ta, Tala!

Finally, I couldn’t let the week go by without mentioning those great profiles in courage, the Texas Democrats who fled to DC to deny the Texas legislature a quorum so that they could pass a popular voting bill.

Yes, those dolts really love democracy, and the sacrosanct nature of voting in our society.  So naturally, when the vast majority of Texans supported a law to stop voter fraud, they bravely… chartered a private plane and ran away.  In order to stop a vote, and thus thwart democracy.

And as shameful a stunt as this was, it’s not unprecedented.  A couple of years ago in WI a GOP governor and legislature was on the verge of passing some very popular anti-corruption legislation, and the Dems in that body snuck out of state, thus thwarting the will of their home state voters.  In that case, they fled across state lines to Chicago.

Where they were all promptly caught in the crossfire of dozens of Biden-voting gang-members in strictly gun-controlled Chicago, and shot to death.

HA!  I kid.  But wistfully.

Okay, this column has been a Dem-bashing-palooza, and I’m not happy about that.  I know many good people who are Democrats, and I know that many millions of decent people in this country vote Democrat. 

But the time has come when they’ve got to stand up and fight to take their party back.  If they don’t do that — if they keep voting for the Pelosis and Schumers and Squad members – they’re going to get some bitter medicine, and they’re going to deserve it.

On a happier note, I want to give a shout-out to CO Nation member Robert Desmond, who hit my Tip Jar hard this week!  I don’t know Robert personally, and I don’t like to throw around the word “hero” loosely.  But Robert Desmond is a fine American hero, people!

Finally, many readers reminded me that Avenatti is only sentenced to 30 months, so by the time 2024 rolls around, he’ll be tanned, rested and ready to get back into the fray. 

Therefore…

Avenatti/Tala Halawa 2024!

It was a sad day today in Manhattan.  And not just because leftist knuckleheads like Grandma-Killer Cuomo and Duh Blasio are still busily at work, destroying a once-great city. 

No, the added miasma of sadness today arose from the Manhattan District Court, where leftist cause celebre and future presidential hopeful Michael Avenatti pled guilty to the first of a raft of charges that will send him to jail for 30 months. 

Oh how the venal have fallen! 

True to form, the tough-talking big mouth capped his court appearance by crying like a bee-yotch and saying that he’s really sorry.  And as a transplanted Southerner, I have to agree: that guy is certainly sorry.  And yes, since you asked: he’s also triflin’.

But before you get too broken up about Avenatti’s deservedly grim future, let’s not forget the real victim here.

That’s right: me.

As frequent readers of the CO website know, I love a running joke.  I created a hashtag for former presidential candidate and translucent non-Indian Elizabeth Warren — #wemustneverstopmockingher – and then I drove that into the ground for two solid years.  I hold the record for the most comparisons of former First Harridan Hillary to a thick-ankled race horse that fell in the last turn of the 2016 race. 

I may have mentioned – several hundred times — that Nancy “Imhotep” Pelosi looks like an ancient Egyptian mummy, and that Joe Biden is clinically deceased, and that nobody calls Dick Durbin “Richard” and that everybody secretly calls Richard Blumenthal “Dick.”

Because if a tagline is funny once, it becomes tiresome when used 10 times, but then becomes hilarious again after it is used 30 times or more.  That’s Comedy 101, people. 

And one of my favorite running jokes is that I’ve been ending most of my columns for the last several years with the tagline “Avenatti/’New Funny Potential Candidate here’ 2020/2024.”  

Why did I start that?  Because I am a humble comedic genius who knows a laughingstock when I see one.  (Look – there’s Adam Schiff!)  (See?)

And Avenatti was a rich source of humor — not just because of his own manifest inadequacies, but because of the way he inadvertently revealed the leftist media hacks’ metaphysical hackishness for all to see.

You may remember Avenatti from his endless appearances on such leftist media outlets as… all of them.  The left truly and deeply loved Avenatti.  They lavished praise on him in a way that would have caused them to be ashamed of themselves, if they weren’t dead inside, and still had the ability to feel shame.

And when in the grip of Avenatti-mania, they actually began to tout him as a serious presidential candidate.  (Though in their defense, the Dems have put up such remedial humans as Al Sharpton, Spartacus Booker, Que Mala and the late Joe Biden as serious candidates, and I’m not sure that Avenatti can’t stumble with that crowd.) (I meant “run” with that crowd.) (Or did I?)

For example, giant dishonest human thumb without glasses Brian Stelter once bloviated, “And looking ahead to 2020, one reason I’m taking you seriously as a contender is because of your presence on cable news.”  MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace also said that it would be “foolish” to underestimate Avenatti as a presidential candidate.  (And if there’s anyone who knows “foolish,” it is the intrepid band of rake-stomping partisan hacks at MSNBC!)  

Conservative-hating pretend conservative Ana Navarro compared Avenatti to – I Schumer you not – the “Holy Spirit.”

Basically they all made colossal Toobins of themselves, repulsively self-pleasuring at the very thought of this dope.

And why?  What were Avenatti’s qualifications to be taken seriously as a functioning adult, let alone a president? 

A steely gaze, a firm jawline, and a rabid hatred of Donald Trump.

Well I’ve got a steely gaze and a firm jawline, and all I get out of that is lustful looks from women and admiring ones from men.  And no one – other than Cassie the Wonder Dog – ever thinks of me as even vaguely presidential. 

Also, I can’t remember the last time someone compared me to the Holy Spirit!

And it’s not like rabid Trump-despisers were thin on the ground from 2016 to 2020.  You couldn’t swing a dead cat – or Joe Biden’s corpse – in DC or NYC without mowing down a phalanx of Trump-hating mouth-frothers.  So there was no rational reason for the lefty elite to become priapic over Michael Avenatti.    

And yet they did.  And in doing so, they gave me a satisfying running joke with which to end my columns for lo these many years. 

And now – just because he took a lot of Stormy Daniels’ money and did to her what she usually gets paid good money to do to other people, and he also made some hamfisted, bullying attempts to blackmail Nike into hiring him – I’m not going to have Avenatti to kick around any more.    

But never fear, CO Nation.  I’m going to get through this.  I’m going to pull myself up, and dust myself off, and as God is my witness, I’ll come up with another running joke tagline.  I don’t know where it will come from, or what it will involve, but—

Oh no, wait:

It’s been a long 4 years, and it’s only been 23 weeks. 

(Sweet!  I can beat this dead horse for the next 3 years and 29 weeks!)

I hope you all had a great Independence Day.  Or Oppressed Indigenous Peoples’ Day, or Julyteenth, or whatever our perpetually aggrieved contingent are now calling it.

I enjoyed this holiday as I always do, feeling grateful for our country, and the once-in-a-millenium gathering of flawed but iconic political geniuses who got us off to such a great start in 1776. 

Our town does fireworks on the 3^rd, and this year marked the 33^rd year since I proposed marriage to my smoke-show of a wife as the fireworks were going off around us.  This marks my crowning – and last — accomplishment as a beguiler of women, and one which has cemented my prominent position in the “Men Who Have Married Up” Hall of Fame.

The only flaw in this beautiful evening – other than the usual spate of leftist, anti-America hate pieces that always come out on our nation’s birthday – happened on my customary late-night walk with Cassie the Wonder Dog.  We went out later than usual this evening, to allow for the fireworks-related revelry to die down.

So naturally, just as we reached the farthest part of our walk, someone fired off a loud explosion one block over.  Cassie whipped around — haunches low, ears back, large eyes focused on me — and gave me an expression that communicated, “Is it go time?  Is Charlie inside the wire?  Is it time to grab my leash in my mouth, bark out the equivalent of, “Fill your hands, you son of a b*tch!” and race toward the explosion?!”

But I turned her toward home, and spent the rest of the walk soothingly explaining to her the virtues of a republic if we can keep it, and the separation of powers, and free minds, free markets and free speech. 

I hope your holiday was as good as mine.

As we reach the midpoint of this year, I thought I’d focus on some of the positive developments and silver linings in this year marked by dark clouds and a dementia-addled administration.  Some of these bright spots involve the sweet, sweet schadenfreude of watching bad actors get what’s coming to them.

For example, all of our pro sports leagues that have forced their woke, fact-free “America is terrible” preaching down our throats are being beaten like so many rented mules in the ratings.  The MLB is off by 50%, and the NBA has dropped even more.  The NFL has damaged itself too, most heavily in the blue cities.  LA built an amazing new stadium to house Rams and Chargers home games, and then kept it entirely empty all season, even after it was clear that the over-reaction to covid was not backed by any sound science.

While the sporting elites don’t seem properly chastened yet, some advertisers have already started demanding heavily discounted ad rates and refunds, and it brings joy to my heart when I think of the next round of contract negotiations.  I foresee a lot of ungrateful man-children walking into some huge pay cuts, and it couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of jerks.

But the hijinks don’t stop there.  How about all of those national Dems and big city leftist mayors who were out there screaming to defund the police and get rid of cash bail just a scant year ago?  Fast forward a few months and crime has skyrocketed, bodies are piling up in blue cities, and Biden-voting felons are running roughshod through the minority communities that the Dem leadership pretended to care about. 

Add to that the completely predictable misery caused by the flight of businesses from the Dem-run cities, after a year of oh-so-peaceful leftist rioting and looting.  Recent examples include more than a dozen Walgreens closing in San Francisco, and high-profile Target stores closing in many cities, including on the south side of Chicago, as well as the Mondawmin area of Baltimore, and elsewhere.

The Chicago examples are particularly instructive, in that the all-Dem and almost all African-American pols who caused this devastation are apparently ineducable.  Council member Carrie Austin said of the Target closings, “They were like a thief in the night.  There were here one day, and then, boom, gone the next.” 

It’s funny she should mention thieves, because those stores and others in Dem-run cities have been plagued by high theft rates.  The criminals the Dems coddle strike like thieves in the night, and also in the day time.  In fact, some of them are crepuscular criminals – active at dawn and dusk.  (And there’s your new word for the day, people.)

When store managers and employees complain and warn about the rampant theft, lefty elites call them racists, and explain that all property is theft, and order police not to respond to non-violent theft calls.  

And then, boom!  The stores are all closed.  And Dem pols shake their heads, totally mystified by what could have caused such a thing.  Probably racism, they decide.  Boo, America!    

In a hilariously stinging development in NYC, the lefties there – having finally noticed that their chosen candidate Duh Blasio is destroying their city in every way possible – had a new election.  The candidates were a bunch of De Blasio-light mouth breathers, plus a guy named Eric Adams, an ex-cop who has bravely taken a stance against the firing – or killing – of cops. 

In a moment of apparent sanity, NY voters gave him a substantial lead on election night.  And as we all know, huge leads on election night always hold up, so what could go wrong?

Well, one thing is that the NY Dems set up a Rube Goldberg election system that features ranked voting. Which as near as I can tell means that you vote for half a dozen people, all of whom reek, and the rankest candidates move on to the next round, during which they are thrown into an octagon filled with a fog of smug arrogance and armed only with terrible ideas that have laid waste to various People’s Republics over the last century.

Any survivors are then subjected to a witching test.  Those who float are sent to a NYC jail, where they all mysteriously commit suicide, just like Jeffrey Epstein absolutely did not do.

The one who sinks is not a witch, and therefore the next mayor. Even though he’s technically dead. 

Just like our current president.   

Oh, and also, the brain trust running the election accidentally included 135,000 “test ballots” in with the actual ballots.  After discovering the mistake, they removed those ballots.  Or many of them.  Or maybe some of them.

Then, when it appeared that Eric Adams still might win, they added in some more ballots, and took some more away.  And did the hokey pokey, and turned themselves around.

So they should have a new mayor in time for the New Year’s ball to drop and welcome in the 2030s.  By which time, if AOC is right, the world will have ended because of global warming, or white nationalism, or capitalism.  Or some cabal of warming white capitalists.

As satisfying as it may be to watch the Dem chickens coming home to roost on the heads of Dem voters, there have been a few silver linings that fall under the category of “the Worst Has Been Avoided.”

In the darkest days of January, after the two Georgia Senate seats fell to terrible candidates, giving the Dems control over both houses of congress and the White House, I feared four political outcomes the most:

1. Some of the most radical Dems were promising to stack the Supreme Court with a bunch of illegitimate nominees to give them total control over the Court.

2. They also talked confidently of making DC – and maybe Puerto Rico too – a new state.

3. They pushed hard to get rid of the filibuster in the Senate.

4. They promised to nationalize the crooked election rules that helped them greatly in 2000, including getting rid of voter ID requirements, sending out many millions of unsolicited mail-in ballots, preventing neutral oversight of elections, and allowing ballot harvesting by leftist political operatives.

Of those four bad outcomes, I considered the last one as far and away the most threatening.

I thought that packing the court would elicit widespread opposition, and I guessed that even our spineless GOP reps would have enough cojones to promise that as soon as they were back in control, they’d add as many justices as the Dems had done.

The DC and Puerto Rican state issue would have been a huge blow to any future chances of a conservative majority in the Senate, but I thought that it would be too controversial, diluting as it would the power of every other state in our current configuration.

Getting rid of the filibuster seemed a much more likely outcome, and with Que Mala (thank you, Spanish speakers, for that great nickname for our VP!) as the deciding vote, it would allow the Dems to push through every horrible bill their Marxist little hearts desired.  But I remembered that when the Dems got rid of the filibuster on approval of judges, they inadvertently allowed us to pass a wave of judges when we got control.  So I thought that the same thing would eventually happen with the regular filibuster, if it came about.

But my greatest fear was that the left would ram through their new, nationalized voting rules, which would enable and codify massive voter fraud, and make it nearly impossible for the GOP to ever win a national election again.

Looking back from the middle of this year, I am relieved to see that the Dems appear to have gone 0-4 on this list, at least as things stand now.  Yes, they’ve added trillions to our debt and huge burdens to our economy, and they are hard at work making everything worse. 

But so far, at least, they’ve been thwarted on the actions that I had feared the most.  

I know: it’s sad that the most horrible leftist schemes NOT being passed is what passes for good news these days.  But I’m taking my good news where I can find it, and I’m hanging on to being an Ameri-CAN!

Still, it’s been a long four years, and it’s only been 22 weeks.

Avenatti/Crepuscular Criminals 2024!

The Cautious Optimism Roving Correspondent – CORCA – is back from his road trip with some thoughts on our POTUS and VP:

Now that we’re in what feels like the 14^th year of this administration, we’ve all come to recognize a couple of constants.  Comma-La is really bad at being a politician.  And Joe Biden is not all there. 

In fact, he’s not even half-way there.  He’s in some sort of shadowy nether realm where logic, common sense and intelligible English grammar and syntax go to die. 

But just when you think that he has managed to scrape the bottom of the linguistic barrel – or in his case, the bottom of the coffin? – his manner of speaking somehow deteriorates. 

It was bad enough when he mumbled everything.  It got worse when he began to slur everything.

But did you hear that beyond-strange whispering thing he did at a recent press conference?  Out of nowhere, when he was stumbling through some of his usual lefty nonsense, he began to lean forward at the podium, so far that his mouth was almost touching the microphone.

And I’m sure that you were thinking the same thing I was:  Stroke?  Cardiac arrest?  Total loss of muscular control?   Call a paramedic.  Call a mortician.  Down goes Biden!  Down goes Biden!!

But then he stopped.  And hovered over the mic.  And started this insanely inappropriate whispering.  “I got them 1.9 trillion dollars relief so far.  They’re going to be getting checks in the mail that are consequential… this week… for child care.”

Then he just stood back up and started talking normally again.  I mean, normally for him: “A lot has been happened already…”

Then, a few minutes later, he did it again.  He stooped forward like an addled, centenarian Vincent Price, and whispered, “This is about who gets to count, whether your vote is counted after it’s been cast.”     

Still later: “Let’s just remind them…” [pause for creepy whispering posture], “I wrote the bill…on the environment.”

And finally:  “…employers can’t find workers.  I said, yeah…” [creepy whispering posture], “Pay them mooorrrre.”

Yikes!   He sounds like he’s in a horror movie. 

Only it’s worse than that, when you consider the terrifying messages he’s saying in that Crypt Keeper voice: “I’ve spent 1.9 trillion dollars… I’m in control of who counts votes… I’m writing bills.” 

And in what sounds like something you’d hear in a threat from a super-villain with a tactical nuke hidden somewhere in LA, “Pay people more, or the constitution gets it!”

I’d be less terrified if I answered the phone and heard his whisper-from-beyond-the-grave saying, “The call is coming from INSIDE the house!”

So it’s no secret the Biden juggernaut has been generally terrible.   But one magical day last week was both a stunning illustration of incompetence, and also just another typical day in the Biden/Harris Dumpster Fire-palooza. 

Er… administration.

During a ceremony welcoming gay and transgender activists to her office last Thursday, Kamala joined in the wince-making recent fad of giving her pronouns as “she/her.”

Sidebar:  Because I’m nothing if not a cutting-edge hipster, and yet also an old-school boss, I’d like to give my pronouns, too: They are “thee” and “thou.”

But I want to get ahead of the trend, and also give the rest of my parts of speech. 

As my nouns, I’ve chosen either “Your Eminence,” or “Your Excellency.”  (I briefly considered, “Your Holiness,” but that seemed a bit much.)

My preferred adjectives are “hilarious” and “handsome.”

And before you can object to the latter, I know.  If you’ve seen my pic at Martinsimpsonwriting.com, “handsome” is a stretch, to put it kindly.   But in my defense, once you’re calling Bruce Jenner “she” – or Don Lemon “he,” for that matter – is it REALLY that much of a stretch?  Because now you’re hurting my feelings.

I’m not done.  My chosen adverb is “stunningly.”  And my preferred speech sound is the “labial fricative.” 

Because it amuses me.  And because it sounds like it might slide in just barely on the sexy side of dirty.

(Why did I not choose the “bilabial fricative?”  You know why.  Get your mind out of the gutter, people.)

Where was I? 

Oh yeah.  Pity the poor millennial who next sees me and fails to say, “May I speak with thee, your stunningly hilarious and handsome Eminence?”  Because I am going to throw a “You got ALL of my grammar wrong!” fit that you will not believe.  

Anyway, back to our illustrious VP.  When she went to the border last week – not because of Trump, so don’t even suggest that! — some local Hispanic Trump supporters took a big lead in the competition for my favorite group of 2021 so far.

Because they gave Kamala a great new Spanish-inflected nickname: “Que Mala.”  Which I’m told means “how bad.”

I really appreciate witty nicknames, especially in languages in which I am as deficient as I am in Spanish.  You may remember the only Spanish phrase I know from high school Spanish class: “Silencio por favor, Martino.”  Which I’m pretty sure means, “Great job, please keep sharing your hilarious insights with the class, Martin.”

But I might not have gotten that translation completely perfect.  Because, as I mentioned, my Spanish leaves mucho to be desired. 

In fact, the only other Spanish phrase I’ve come up with is my previous nickname for Comma-la: “super esparcidor.”    (Spanish for “super spreader.”)  But I know a much better nickname when I hear it. 

So henceforth, for this humble columnist at least, Comma-la will now be known as “Que Mala.”

So let it be escrito, so let it be done.  

(That’s right: a multi-lingual hat-tip to Yul Brynner, as Pharoah, in The 10 Commandments.   That counts as a three-bank shot in anybody’s rules of obscure comic references.)

Meanwhile, while Que Mala was being muy mal, Joey Gaffes was across town doing a press availability.

So you know that went swimmingly. 

As he tried to explain why so many people have resisted getting vaccinated, Biden produced this little chunk of brilliance: “There’s a reason why it’s been harder to get African Americans, initially, to get vaccinated, because they are used to being experimented on — the Tuskegee Airmen and others.  People have memories.  People have long memories.”

Let’s skip right past the irony of a guy who can’t remember the names of half of his cabinet members warning us against the dangers of long memories.

Biden has mixed up – and not for the first time – the black Tuskegee Airmen/pilots who flew in WWII with the black guys who had an STD, and were victimized by the Tuskegee syphilis experiments, during which their conditions went untreated. 

In the very unlikely event that he’s reading this column, please consider this a public service from a concerned citizen who would like him to be better at his job:

“Mr. President, you know those guys who are to your left when you’ve stumbled up the mobile airport staircase (which I pray will soon be taking the oath of office as our 47^th president) and onto Air Force One?  Those guys don’t have syphilis.  They’re your pilots.

And your degenerate son, with the hookers and the meth and the Chinese cash stuffed in suitcases? 

He’s not a pilot.  He’s got syphilis.

You’re welcome.” 

All right.  Later this week I’ll have a column out about some bright spots in our political scene, not withstanding the natural disasters narrated above.

Until then, it’s been a long 4 years.  And it’s only been 21 weeks. Avenatti/Mobile Airport Staircase 2024!