Month: October 2022

I’m back after a fantastic but sometimes heartbreaking week visiting my mom in TN.  We took a trip to a new location each day, and though her memory issues manifested themselves regularly, we really did have a good time together. 

We saw downtown squares and old house districts in Franklin and Murfreesboro, and some great Fall colors and elaborate Halloween yard decorations in every nearby town. We drove part of the Natchez Trace Parkway and saw Meriwether Lewis’ grave.  Even on the day when we didn’t do any traveling, and the biggest event of the day was to get an oil change in my car, we had fun.

I’ve decided to try to learn some conversational German, so on my trip I listened to German lessons on cd.  Mom’s grandparents and dad spoke some German around the house, so she was interested, and had me play bits of the lessons during parts of our drives.

She thought my attempts at pronouncing some of the back-of-the-throat consonants were hilarious.  I could not say “nicht” without her laughing like a schoolkid. 

So we sat in the car while the oil was being changed, asking each other directions to Goethe Street and saying “not very well” until we both had tears in our eyes.  (Vo ist die GUR-TA SCH-STRASSE?  Nicht sehr goot!)   

The oil change guy thought we’d lost our minds.

On my last day there, we put in more than 6000 steps walking through the pretty neighborhoods in Columbia, not far from the President James K. Polk house. 

Of course I’d introduced my mom and sister to the great They Might be Giants song, “James K. Polk” when they first moved to Columbia, years ago.  And no visit is complete without me belting out at least part of one verse and the chorus.  (“Having done all this he sought no second TERRRRMMMMM!  Mr. James K Polk, Napoleon of the Stump!”)   

If you haven’t heard it before, find it on YouTube immediately.  For my money, it’s the best rock song about the 1844 electoral contest among Martin Van Buren, James Buchanan and James Polk ever recorded!

While I was gone, the polls have been breaking for the GOP, helped along by some truly amazing debates.

Everyone is talking about the Uncle Fester in the room at the Fetterman/Oz conflagration: a candidate who is incapable of thinking coherent thoughts or saying intelligible words.

Sorry, that’s “elephant” in the room.  Honest mistake.

I caught myself starting to feel sorry for Fetterman, just as a fellow human being.  But when I remember what a radical and horrible pol he was before his stroke, my sympathies are dampened.

Along with the usual terrible Dem policies – tax everything that moves, anti-school-choice, abortion even after the Braxton Hicks contractions have started – he’s as bad on crime as any of this year’s Dems.  And that’s saying a lot!

When he was asked what he’d do if he had a magic wand and could fix one thing, he said that he’d end life without parole for murderers.

Good lord!  Even 18-year-old beauty pageant contestants know that you’re supposed to answer the magic wand question with something like “world peace” or “end cancer.” 

But not Fetterwoman.  He’s all, “Open the prison gates.  You’re free, recidivist predators!  Go forth and prey on the citizens whose votes I’m trying to win!”

The three best things about the Fetterman implosion:  

1. His opening with a closing: “Hi, goodnight everybody!” (In retrospecticus, he should have just waved to the crowd and left right then.  You had us at “goodnight,” Lurch.)

2. The train wreck/dumpster fire/Hindenburg disaster of a performance offered the truly egregious mainstream media the chance to beclown themselves for the thousandth time this election cycle.  And before you could say, “If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?” they were decked out in floppy shoes, red noses and fright wigs.

Some “journalists” said Oz was an able-ist bully for actually debating Fetterman.  Others said that Fetterman’s meltdown was actually pretty effective, since he provided an inspiring and transparent role model for stroke victims.

The opinion writers of the Philly Inquirer actually scored the debate and said that Fetterman won!

The man couldn’t have done worse if he’d confessed to Nazi sympathies, revealed a long-term amorous relationship with a farm animal, then knocked himself out cold by hitting his head on the podium as he jackknifed forward to vomit on his shoes.

And those dopes said that he won.  They should be driven from public life in disgrace!  (Instead of getting hired to teach at some Ivy League J-school, which we all know is where they’ll end up.)

3. While that performance should end Fetterman’s chances in PA, at least he made Biden look like a silver-tongued devil by comparison. 

Well, that might be going too far. 

Biden has been plumbing new depths in presidential performance this month, but I’d like to defend him. Or at least one of his most recent gaffes.

After Liz Truss’ fruit-fly lifespan as British Prime Minister, somebody named Rishi Sunak is the new one.  And Biden immediately called him “Rashee Sanuk.”

Of all of Biden’s flubs, this is one is both understandable and acceptable.  Because everyone knows that a British leader should be named something like Winston or Nigel or Henry.  Or Richard. 

“Rishi Sunak” might be a good name for a Persian satrap, or possibly a Klingon warlord.  But I don’t blame Biden for mangling that name, especially since he’s got an advanced degree in English word mangling. 

He’s not even good at counting words.  See his recent performance at a DC-area Denny’s that he mistook for the Democrat National Convention: “I’ve got two words: Four score and seven years ago… um… you know… you know the thing.”

Also, he thinks dead people might show up for press conferences, and he can’t tell the difference between his wife and his sister.

So is anyone surprised that THAT guy bungled a name that looks like a series of random tiles in a Scrabble game?  (Which he hasn’t played since he was a middle-aged man, during the Truman administration.)  

The new PM has only been in office for a few days, and I’ve already caught myself calling him “Maha Rishi” and “Poison Sumac.”  And I’m four standard deviations better than Joe Biden with language.

By the way, I’ve got an unrelated theory about Biden: his handlers hate him.

How else can you explain the way they NEVER are standing next to him when he finishes a mumbling, regurgitated word salad? 

Sorry, a speech.  They’re never standing next to him when he finishes a speech.

For a regular politician, that wouldn’t be a big deal.  But by now, everybody knows that when he’s done speaking – you can tell because he trails off from grouchy disoriented rambling, to mumbled nonsequiturs, to baffled silence – that he’s going to stand there blankly. 

Then he’s going to turn in one direction – inevitably the wrong one – and give a nod or a hand gesture to one of the dearly departed whom no one else can see, before he takes a few shuffling steps toward the closest hedge, tree trunk, or blank wall.

Then a minion, a flunky, or Dr.  Jill will intervene with brisk alarm, just in time to keep him from falling off a stage, or down a staircase, or into a nearby poison sumac bush.  (Double points for two poison sumac references in one column!)  Then they’ll redirect his halting steps in the right direction.

The effect is to reinforce what a doddering husk he has become, and to make him look awful.  In other words: it makes for terrible optics.  And yet none of his people ever plan for that, or make the slightest effort to avoid it.

And it happens every time!

Thus my theory: his handlers hate him.

So yeah, that was my defense of Joe Biden.  Stirring, wasn’t it?

I’m trying not to get my hopes up, but if the red wave on 11/8 is as big as it looks like it may be, the Democrat long knives will be out for Biden right after the new year, if not before.  I expect something like the scene last week in China’s big CCP Noodle-Hall Putsch, when Winnie the Xi sat there with a poker face while his predecessor was pulled from his seat by a couple of thugs and hustled out of the room, never to be heard from again.

Except with Joe, they’ll probably just hold a bowl of ice cream out in front of him, and walk slowly toward the nearest exit.  He’ll shuffle after them like a somnambulant mummy with a sweet tooth, until they’ve led him into the back of a windowless van. 

Then it’s off to a farm upstate, where he can run and play with the Fettermans, Feinsteins and Pelosis of the world. (Until they each break a hip, and have to be put down.)

Either way, Brandon is going to join James K. Polk as one who “never sought a second terrrmmmm!” (Sing it with me: “He’s Joseph P Biden with the acuity of a stump!”)

And then things will get really interesting.  Normally his replacement would be the VP.

But Dios mio, it’s Que Mala!

So then we go to the Democrat bench, which is loaded with such has-beens and never-weres as ancient Bernie, Mayor Pete, Sandy “juicy booty” Cortez (her words, not mine), and the Unbearable Whiteness of Lizzie. (#wemustneverstopmockingher)

2023 is going to be interesting.

But in the meantime, what are the Dems’ chances on November 8^th? 

I don’t want to count my chickens, but… NICHT SEHR GUT! Avenatti/ the Ghost of James K. Polk, 2024!

A couple of political targets are especially deserving of mockery today, but first, I’ve got a quick update on my trip north.

I spent several great days in Illinois with three of my cousins, and since we didn’t go to Chicago, I have survived to tell the tale.

The leaf colors were near their peak, and we hiked for about 10 miles each day on canal paths and in Starved Rock state park, which is just downriver from my birthplace.  (Tragically – and really, inexplicably — there is no flattering equestrian statue of me there to mark the place or the event.)  

The daytime temps both days were in the low 40s, which is just about perfect for hiking.  The first day, we even had about 10 minutes of snow flurries, despite the above-freezing temps.   The experience triggered a lot of happy memories from my childhood.  The crisp, bracing breeze; the birdsong and sounds of leaves crackling under your feet; the clean, tannic smell in the air.  

If I could have gone to a small-town football game, and then taken a hayrack ride and had some apple cider, the experience would have been perfect.

One downside of living in north central Florida is the lack of a real fall and winter.   When it does get down into the 20s at night about half a dozen times in the winter, everyone loses their minds.  The local news anchors shriek about the three “P”s – pipes, plants and pets (cover the first two, bring in the third) – in the same tone you’d expect if they were delivering the news of incoming nuclear missiles. 

So I really appreciate the chance to travel up north in the fall.

On Wednesday I drove back down to TN, and yesterday mom and I took a drive to the charming town of Franklin.  It was another sunny, fall day, and we parked downtown, then took a leisurely walk along the tree-lined streets, looking at the well-kept old houses.  We ended up back in the town square, and had a nice lunch at Puckett’s, where I understand they have live music on the weekends. 

(I’d be very disappointed if the playlist doesn’t have a lot more Johnny Cash and Hank Williams than Lizzo and Cardi B.) 

We ended our rambling on the far end of town, and Waze gave me an alternate route home that took us on a winding two-lane road through the rolling hills, in slanting, late-afternoon sunshine on scenic Carter’s Creek Pike.

Which is about the most Tennessee road name you’re ever going to hear.

Now get ready for some whiplash, as I transition from all of those familial ties that bind and the beauty of God’s creation to three ridiculous stories from our political opposition.

First we go to the University of Minnesota’s most recent “white coat” induction ceremony for a new class of medical students.  That ceremony involved a doctor leading all students in a nearly 500-word, chanted pledge.

I’m not opposed to all repeat-after-me, chanted pledges or vows.  I like old timey wedding vows. I’m very fond of the Boy Scout oath and the Pledge of Allegiance, even though they both now feel a little like something from the Pleistocene era.

I’m deeply moved every time I’m in a group, and hear many voices begin, “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name…”

But those (God help us) future doctors’ chanting was nothing like that.  Their pledge was a mishmash of every hollow, woke, virtue-signaling cliché that’s ever made you throw up in the back of your mouth a little. 

Or, as the late, great Norm MacDonald would say, it sounded like, “a bunch of f***-in’ commie gobbledy-gook!”   

They started with the obligatory land acknowledgment, noting that their university “is located on Dakota land.”

If they really believed that the land still belongs to the Dakotas, they should shut down their school and give it to them.  Then, by the same logic, the Dakotas would have to give it to whichever tribe they stole it from, who would have to give it to the tribe they stole it from, until they got all the way back to an early hominid with the kind of thick brow ridge you never see outside of a museum display on Cro-Magnons.

Or a John Fetterman speech. 

That process would be almost as stupid and pointless as if they just cut out all of the gyrations and turned the place directly over to the Pale Powhatan herself, Lizzie Warren.  (#wemustneverstopmockingher)   

Among other things, they then go on to “commit to uprooting the legacy and perpetuation of structural violence deeply embedded within the health care system,” and to fight the “inequities…and traumas rooted in white supremacy, colonialism, the gender binary, ableism and all forms of oppression.”

Which makes our medical system sound great, doesn’t it?  Come for the structural violence, stay for the oppressive and traumatic racism and colonialism. 

But that’s not all.

They want you to know that they are big on anti-racism, and they love the environment, as you can see when they pledge to “heal the planet.” They also “promise to continue restoring trust in the medical system.”

Gee, I wonder why people need to have their trust in the medical system restored?  Maybe it’s because you numbskulls are more concerned with healing Gaia than with healing grandma!

The best part – if by “best” you mean “worst” – is this sentence, which I swear I am not making up:  “We pledge to honor all indigenous ways of healing that have been historically marginalized by western medicine.”

Ah yes, the indigenous ways of healing, which resulted in an average lifespan of 31 years.  When a (witch) doctor could take coursework in trepanation, do an internship in leech application, and then specialize in plant-based poultices that are most efficacious for driving off evil spirits. 

After all, who needs dialysis or cardiac stents when you can stick with a combination of feng shui and reading chicken entrails to determine which of my humors are out of whack?

And by the way, if those “marginalized” practices were unwisely rejected by western medicine, why are you all so eager to take on six figure debts to get a degree in that nasty, ableist cesspool of western medicine?

I would sooner trust the medical wisdom of my high school football coach – whose primary prescriptions were “rub some dirt on it” and, “walk it off” – than this bunch of cowed and spineless hacks.

Next we go to Wolfsburg, Germany, where 9 narcissistic “scientists” glued their hands to the floor of a VW dealership to protest fossil fuels and climate change. 

Rather than taking the Simpson approach – yanking them all off of the floor (leaving them with a lot less hand skin than they started with) and tossing them in jail – the Germans at the dealership displayed some German ingenuity.

They turned off the lights and the heat in the building and went home. 

Naturally, the protestors complained that they had been left in a dark, cold building.  But since electricity and heat are provided almost totally by fossil fuels (coal, natural gas) or nuclear energy, the VW people were just giving the foolish alarmists what they wanted, and teaching them a lesson:

A world without fossil fuels is cold and dark.

The protestors also complained that they weren’t given “a bowl to urinate and defecate in.”

You should have thought about that before you glued your hand to a freakin’ floor, Klaus! 

I’d always thought it was a cliché, but in this case it was true: these guys really didn’t have a pot to p*ss in.    

Finally, a notoriously anti-police, far-left ice cream shop in Seattle got a karma cone covered in schadenfreude sauce.

The Full Tilt Ice Cream shop has spent the last several years hip-deep in leftist group-think.  Their social media has been a non-stop screed of hatred for the cops and support for BLM and CHOP, even when such leftist hate groups were destroying large swaths of their city.

But then, on October 4^th, two males broke in and robbed the place.  So naturally, the lactose-loving Leninists turned for help to the fascist foot-soldiers of an unjust Amerikkka.

That’s right.  The commies called the cops.

I can only hope the cops told them that due to budget cuts, they’d be able to send an officer to investigate… sometime in March or April of next year.

In the meantime, I can’t suggest that everybody who likes ice cream should head down to Full Tilt and help themselves to the inventory.  But the owners have worked hard to make Seattle a police-free zone, and their ideology says that profit is evil. 

So…

It’s been a long 14 years, but November 8^th is almost here.

Tomorrow I’m going to be heading up to TN, and then IL for a 12-day trip.  Every fall I try to get up north and see some leaves changing, so that’s part of this trip.  But I’m also going to get to spend some more time with my mom in TN.

After my dad passed in 2014, my sister and her excellent husband sold their house, and mom sold hers, and they bought a nice two-story place together.  Mom had her own set-up on one floor – kitchen, dining room, two bedrooms and a bath – and everything has worked out great.

My sister and her hubby are taking a trip to see his family in up-state New York, leaving in the middle of next week.   Mom is 84 now, and her Alzheimer’s has been progressing, so she’s not really up for long trips or staying alone.  So I’m going to pass through on my way up to hang out with the cousins in IL for a few days, and then come back to TN, where I’ll get to spend a week with my sweet mom, while Rhonda and Jimmy are on their New York trip.  

My better half is not able to make the trip with me, but Cassie the Wonder Dog is looking forward to going up and seeing her grandma, plus her two dog-cousins, Raven and Edgar.  (Yes, my sister is an Edgar Allen Poe fan, as one should be.)  And I’m looking forward to taking mom on a bunch of day trips to see some Fall colors, do some window shopping, and eat at some mom-and-pop places in the small towns around there.

Mom is still in good spirits, and the blanks in her memory are uneven.  A month ago she moved upstairs, because she’d left her stove on several times and was starting to “sundown” in the evenings. Now that she’s happily settled in upstairs, she doesn’t remember that she lived downstairs for the last 7 years.

But all my sister or I have to do is sing the first line of her Ottawa, IL high school fight song from 70 years ago (The first line is, “Crimson and white, we’re moving onward!”), and she’ll join in and sing both verses to the end. 

The last several times we tried to play cards with her, she said she’d forgotten how.  But we reminded her of some rules and started a game, and it gradually came back to her.  About five minutes in, one of us had missed our bid and started leading trump to screw up everyone else’s hand too, and mom said, “Oh, dad used to do that all the time, and it made me so mad!”

She looked about 20 years younger when she said that. 

She still remembers her family, and all of us, and dad, and a lot of Bible verses.  She remembers a lot of funny stories, and a lot of tough times that she and dad lived through.  She has a lot of friends at her church, and she’s surrounded by people who love her. 

We could all do a lot worse.  Death is coming for all of us, but mom is hanging in, and she’s facing her decline with grace, and grit, and good humor.   And I get to spend a week with her all to myself.  With any luck we’ll create some more memories, and if she can’t hang on to them, I’ll remember them for both of us. 

Also, I should be able to talk her in to writing Rhonda out of her will, and leaving everything to me.

HA!  I kid because I love. 

Speaking of things in decline, how about Biden’s performance, and the Dems’ election hopes?

The last monthly inflation numbers before the election have come out, and — hold on to your hat –the “experts” are surprised that they are “worse than expected.”

Which makes a string of 20 consecutive months of surprised experts and their inaccurate expectations.

Biden asked the Saudis to not cut their oil production, and they replied with whatever is Arabic for, “Stick it, Brandon!”

Which lead to a great Daily Caller headline: “Biden’s October Surprise is Even Higher Gas Prices, Experts Say.” It’s almost like he doesn’t understand how an “October surprise” is supposed to work.

Or how counting works.  I’m sure you saw his brilliant opening when he addressed some union guys last week: “Let me start off with two words: Made in America.”

That quote leads me to this week’s entry in my new “Find a Mirror” series. 

GOP congresswoman Lauren Boebert is working on her black belt in lib trolling, so she posted a tweet saying, “Two words: Let’s Go Brandon.”

Predictably, a clot of lefties who wildly over-estimate their own intelligence fell all over each other to be the first one to stomp on the self-beclowning metaphorical rake that Boebert had laid out before them.   (And yes, “clot” is the correct collective noun.  A murder of crows, a pride of lions, and a clot of lefties who over-estimate their own intelligence.  You’re welcome.)

George Takei – whose only contribution to society was playing a bit part in a campy tv show for 3 seasons 60 years ago – tweeted, “She can’t…count.”

Anti-gun irritant David “Publicity” Hogg said, “Three words: You’re an idiot.”

A lefty talk show host whom no one has ever heard of named Chip Franklin speculated that Boebert is either “dumb as dirt or just unable to count.”

Former Obama and Biden minion Jon Cooper said, “That’s THREE words.  She’s such a friggin’ moron!”

It’s so satisfying to see half-wits like that get out-played by someone they think is super dumb!  If any of them were better men, when they discovered their mistake, they’d be sheepish enough to actually be chastened by their self-own.

Guys, you were actually right, for just a moment – someone who announced “two words” and then said three words would actually be just what you said.  An idiot.  A moron.  Either dumb as dirt or unable to count.

That’s YOUR guy!  He did that.  And YOU got outwitted by dopey ol’ Lauren Boebert!

Find a mirror! 

Finally, let’s close with a quick round of “compare and contrast,” this time with crime-fighting ideas and results in blue and red states.

If you’ve been following the crime stats in Chicago, I hope you’ve been doing it from a distance.  Because otherwise you’d be dead right now.

It turns out that allowing murderers to murder and robbers to rob while simultaneously stopping police from policing has produced one long crime wave.  (Experts shocked!  Again!)

The latest trend was captured in a Chicago Sun Times headline which I swear to you I am not making up:  “After second shooting in a week at a Chicago police facility, top cop says department looking at making stations safer.”

That’s right.  Criminals have lost interest in committing crimes in darkened alleys or abandoned buildings.  Now they’re going into POLICE STATIONS and aiming guns at cops!

You can read the story for details, but the most shocking one to me was that both thugs in the two different incidents were only wounded, rather than killed.

I’m no police procedures manual writer, but I’d think the protocol for this kind of situation would be pretty straight forward: 

“In the event an armed criminal comes into a police station full of cops and aims a firearm at them, please follow these three steps:

1. Every officer present should empty his or her magazine into the suspect.

2. When all weapons are clicking on an empty chamber, the senior officer on site should say, “Cease fire.”

3. The most junior officer on site should then find a mid-sized waste basket and place what’s left of the suspect into it.   

Now to the free state of Florida, where every piece of plywood in the state is festooned with messages such as “You loot, we shoot!” and, “Try to Loot, I’ll Eat your Face!” and the Governor (peace be upon him) reminds potential looters that this is a 2^nd amendment state.

Result?  Very little looting.  (Experts shocked! Again!)

DeSantis also spoke for most of us when he reacted to the news that the Parkland school shooter received a life sentence rather than the death penalty:

“The only appropriate sentence for the massacre of 17 innocent people is the death penalty. That the jury had a single holdout refuse to authorize a capital sentence represents a miscarriage of justice…. And so I was very disappointed to see that. I’m also disappointed that we’re four and a half years after these killings, and we’re just now getting this. You know, they used to do this he would have been executed in six months.”

Cut to me, doing my Meg Ryan impression during the diner scene in When Harry Met Sally.  
“Yes! YES! YESSSS!”

Sure, there were some flaws in old-timey frontier justice, with its tendency toward, “catch him, try him, and hang him” in a fortnight.

But is everybody okay with our current system, where the leading causes of death on DEATH ROW are old age and natural causes?

Apparently Chicago Mayor Fright-Wig River Carp and Illinois Governor “Round Mound of Unsound” Pritzker are.

DeSantis isn’t. 

I know whose side I’m on.

It’s been a long 14 years, but the election is in 28 days.

If there’s one thing I know about, it’s dim-witted English professors.  (No, not yours truly.  The other ones.) And so I’ll open today with the recent appearance on the Dr. Phil show by ASU English prof Neal Lester.  

The topic of the conversation between Dr. Phil and Dr. Lester – throw in Dr. Jill and you’ve got yourself a trifecta of useless doctors — was “cultural appropriation.” Lester, an African-American wearing long dreadlocks, was against it.

Lester claimed that adopting a style or interest from another cultural group is “reductive,” and he finds that “disrespectful” to that other culture. 

Of course this is one of the classic “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” bad-faith games that many leftists like to play.  If you don’t like rap, or celebrate black celebrities or cultural figures, or appreciate black clothing or food or speech patterns, you’re an anti-black racist. 

But if you listen to rap and you don’t conjugate “to be” conventionally, and you wear dreads and a Snoop Dogg t-shirt, you’re a culturally appropriating racist.

It’s the old, “Heads I win, tails… go f*** yourself, whitey!” conundrum.   

As someone who once — for a short but dark time in my youth — had a mullet, I am usually loath to cast aspersions on the hairstyle choices of others.  But find a pic of Neal Lester, and look at this guy’s dreads, and ask yourself how many people want to wear their hair like that. 

I mean, God bless, and you do you, but seriously. Not since the pudgy North Korean dictator forbade any other norks to adopt his monstrosity of a ‘do has there been so little to worry about, hairstyle-imitation-wise.

And by the way, who does this dope think he is to try to dictate people’s hairstyles?

It’s not even like he’s following his own arrogant pronouncements.  Because during the entire interview, he was appropriating whitey’s stuff like there’s no tomorrow.

He wore a suit (invented by Brit Beau Brummell in the early 19^th century), a necktie (attributed to Louis XIII, who liked part of the uniform worn by Croatian soldiers, which gave him the idea) and glasses (attributed to Salvino D’Armate in 1285). 

Granted, someone named “Salvino” probably isn’t Liz Warren white (#wemustneverstopmockingher), but he was a European, so not one of the dimwit prof’s favored Africans.  

Lester projected his voice through the use of a microphone (invented by Emile Berliner in 1877), and tv cameras (white guy Philo Farnsworth in 1927), on tv (the origin of which is disputed, but perhaps is best attributed to a fellow named Vladimir Zworykin – working for RCA — in the early 1930s).

And before you can ask: no, he was neither one of those rare black Vladimirs that you’re always hearing about in Kanye songs, nor one of the Kinshasa Zworykins. 

Also, Lester made his ridiculously idiotic arguments in English, a Germanic language which was pioneered by Anglo-Saxon types around 450 AD.  The Angles and the Saxons were both Liz Warren white.  And don’t get me started on the Jutes, who were as pale as Martha’s Vineyard in the off-season.  And the Frisians?  Wow. 

To summarize, around the time Rome fell, it was cracker city from one end of England to the other!

In fact, if you were a typical British guy from around 450-1200 and had a son, he would have looked like Harald Hardrada.  (Boom!  Obscure historical white guy reference for 1000!)

Later on, English grammar had an influx of vocab from French, Latin and Greek (white, swarthy-white, and olive-skinned white, respectively).

If Lester were judged by his own standards, he would have arrived in a dashiki, squinted at his surroundings, and spoken in an African language — Twi, Shona or Swahili, for example – thus making himself incomprehensible (but no less unpersuasive) to 99.9% of his audience.

Except that his audience couldn’t have heard his inanities anyway, since he would have had no microphone, and they couldn’t have seen him to appreciate his dashiki-and-dreads combo, because he’d have had no cameras.

I thought about making this story the next in my “Find a Mirror!” series, wherein I highlight some goofball who is totally lacking in self-awareness.  Neal Lester certainly fills that bill.

But alas, I cannot tell him to find a mirror.  Because the modern mirror was invented in 1835 by German chemist Justus vol Liebig, and I don’t want to offend Neal’s delicate sensibilities by asking him to look in a mirror invented by white devils. 

Speaking of dumb people, I’m always grateful to God that most criminals have AOC-level IQs.  If they’re not getting facial tattoos with their names and gang affiliations to make them stand out in a line-up, they’re posting accounts of their crimes on social media, or making other similarly bad decisions.

Consider the case of Zyeama Johnson, a 27-year-old New Jersey resident who had 11 bench warrants out for her arrest – for fraud, and failure to appear on multiple traffic charges – in Jersey and PA.  Apparently the fraud wasn’t paying the bills, because she recently applied for a regular job.

Sure, it probably wasn’t brilliant to bring two stolen credit cards with her to her job interview.  But she probably didn’t think the interviewers would be going through her purse, because why would they?

Well, they might do that if the place she applied for work was the Hudson County Sheriff’s Office. 

Yes, that’s the law enforcement agency that, among other things, specializes in finding and arresting people with active warrants.  And I don’t know if they checked her references, but they damn sure checked her criminal history.   And found her basket of active warrants, and arrested her at her interview.

And then found the stolen credit cards in her purse.

I feel sorry for her.  She looks so sad in her mug shot, and I really do hope that she gets her act together.

Besides, say what you will about Zyeama — I’d still rather have her as my president than the Scranton Stutterer.

Speaking of crime, and lefties not being good at dealing with it, let me close with a humorous tale of the funniest final line I’ve ever heard in a television show.  It comes from a sympathetic story on sex offenders in the leftist program Vice News. 

Okay, that doesn’t sound like a laugh riot.  But hear me out…

The program does its best to present a sympathetic take on the plight of sex offenders.  While it makes some good points about the obstacles they face when getting out of jail – the stigma, their difficulties in finding employment or housing, etc. – it struggles mightily to NOT see the elephant in the room:

Sex offenders have the highest recidivism rates of all criminals, and their crimes are especially devastating to the victims and their communities. 

The interviewer, Alice Hines, focuses on a paroled offender named Aishef, whom she follows through his struggles as he tries to get back on his feet, dogged by the legacy of his past crimes.  She is honest enough to show the way he tries to downplay or deny some of his crimes, and she does interview a victim of his, too. 

Her heart seems to be in the right place, as many leftists’ hearts are, but her ideology interferes with her ability to recognize the flaws in the advocacy position she takes.  Ultimately, her message about Aishef is clear: he is mostly a victim of a dysfunctional and unfair justice system.

At the end, she gives him what she intended to be the last, uplifting words, in answer to her question about his hopes for the future. He replies, “I ain’t going to let stuff stop me.  Not even this, or DNA, or a person’s opinion.  We all out here in this world, and we all gotta make it happen.  Ain’t nothing stoppin’ me.  I’m very hopeful, and confident.”

Then… wait for it…

“After this interview, Ashief sent a picture of his penis to our producer.”

And, scene.

I am breathlessly awaiting the announcement that Alice Hines has been nominated to become the new head of the Biden DOJ.

Avenatti/Ashief 2024!

I spent some time this week catching up on some Gutfeld episodes that I’d recorded over the last 10 days or so, and I came across a monologue from last week that gave me pause.  When Gutfeld discussed Biden asking where deceased congresswoman Jackie Walorski was, he jokingly referenced Biden’s habit of shaking hands with ghosts, and also using a Ouija board.

You may remember that I made a variation of both of those jokes in my column last Friday.  I wrote my column on Thursday night, without having seen that Gutfeld bit, and as a former English prof for whom plagiarism was a cardinal sin, I feel compelled to say that. 

I’m guilty of many things: low-brow humor, sometimes cruel lampooning of those I think deserve it, and repeated mockery of all those times Liz Warren appeared in redface during her vaudeville years.  (#wemustneverstopmocking her) 

Having said that, I think it may be that Biden’s bizarre behavior makes séance-adjacent references fairly obvious.  On the other hand, its also possible that Gutfeld and I think very much alike.

I’m not sure which of us should be more alarmed by that thought!

The mid-terms are only a month away, and I’m trying not to pay too much attention to the polls, even though I’m happy that they seem to be moving away from the Dems lately.  Polls are problematic because while they are generally skewed to the left, the natural instinct to dismiss all polls that look bad for one’s side can lead to being in a bubble, and disconnected from political realities.

A lot of MSM polls are not much better than “push” polling, whereby the pollster skews answers by using deceptively loaded language: 

“How do you feel about women’s reproductive health care?” (That means abortion, possibly up until the baby crowns.  Or after.)

“Do you approve of gender-affirming care?” (That means dangerous chemical and surgical intervention in a futile attempt to deny one’s actual gender.)      

“Do you think toddlers should be given assault-style weapons of war?” (That means, “Do you think citizens should be allowed to bear arms to defend themselves, like it says in the constitution?”)

More subtle skewing depends on the population sampled.  Surveys of “likely voters” invariably find more support for conservatives; surveys of “registered voters” find less support, and surveys of “adults” find still less. 

Many polls also over-sample lefties and under-sample righties.  In a district where the GOP, the Dems, and Independents each represent a third of the voters, you can get an unrealistically sunny poll for Dems by polling 50% Dems, 25% independents, and 25% GOP.

In the last 3 national elections, national polls obviously skewed toward the Dems.  In 2016, polls had Hillary killing it in WI and MI, and with small but significant leads in PA, FL, NC – all of which she ultimately lost.  (Oh, the joy it still brings me to write that sentence!)  The NY Times famously gave her a 92% chance of winning on election eve, and most MSM electoral vote projections had her taking somewhere in the 315-325 range. (She actually got only 232.)  

In races across the board in 2018 and 2020 – whether the GOP ultimately lost or won them – polls consistently erred in favor of the Dems.  And the polls had Terry MacAuliffe easily beating Youngkin in VA last November.

On the other hand, ignoring polling that you don’t like is foolish, and has come back to bite many candidates and voters over the years.  It’s sometimes hard to predict turnout, and with shady practices like massive mail-in voting, ballot harvesting and fraud, it’s tough to be confident of the outcome, even when you feel confident about how the voters actually feel.

I generally try a couple of tactics when handicapping an election:

1. I give more credence to final polls than earlier ones, because earlier polls can be used to influence voting patterns by skewing left, while final polls are the ones by which pollsters are ultimately judged.

2. I try to judge polling outfits by past performance.  Who was closest to the actual results over the last half-dozen election cycles? 

3. I consider historical trends, though with a grain of salt.  The party out of power tends to win congressional seats in a new president’s first mid-term.  If an incumbent is under 50% in approval ratings late, s/he is vulnerable.   High presidential approval ratings pull his party up in midterms, while low prez numbers pull it down.  The right track/wrong track answers usually predict incumbent party success or failure.

4. I adjust for bias by adding anywhere from 2-4 points to the GOP candidate in most races.  So this year, the GA, PA and AZ senate races show a slight Dem lead, but I’d guess that there is a slight GOP lead in all of them.  Kari Lake for AZ governor, Laxalt in NV and Vance in OH all have small poll leads, so I’d probably guess that they’re up more like 5 points.

Overall, I’m nervous and worried about fraud, but – you guessed it – cautiously optimistic about November 8^th.  What do you all think?

Okay, let me end with a quick whip-round of morons in the news:

You know I’ve got a very low opinion of the cackling dopes on the View, and Whoopi Goldberg is as bad as any of them.  So it was extra fun to read a reviewer’s analysis of the upcoming movie “Till” – about the hideous lynching of Emmett Till in 1955 – in which Goldberg has a part. 

In the review, Kyndall Cunningham (she’s black, so you know that she’s not racist) was mostly positive, but she did criticize the “distracting fat suit” that Goldberg wore in the movie.

There’s only one problem. 

One hilarious problem.

Goldberg wasn’t wearing a fat suit in the film.

D’oh!  (Also: HA! HAHA!  HAHAHA!!)

By the way, here’s my review of “Till”:  Do we need another self-congratulatory, virtue-signaling exercise in racial scab-picking about an old story that everybody already agrees on, and no one would ever defend? 

How about, NO!   

Do you remember Jacob Frey, the leftist, low-T Minneapolis mayor who infamously surrendered his city and allowed months of BLM and Antifa riots to devastate much of its business district in 2020?  (In my column at the time, I referred to him as Mayor Wussy McPussington, if that rings any bells.)

Well, the Frey-baby has learned nothing.  This week he complained that in the Twin Cities, “it is easier to buy a gun than a fresh apple.” 

I know what you’re thinking: “How am I going to terrorize and rob some white-privilege-having mother-friender by holding a fresh apple to his head?  Am I supposed to pass out a bunch of Granny Smiths to my posse the next time we want to do a smash-and-grab at a jewelry store? C’mon, man!”

“Besides, I’m sick of filling out all of those forms and then waiting days for a federal background check every time I want to buy a fresh apple!”

If you missed Biden’s remarks when he stopped by Puerto Rico on Monday, you should find a copy of the transcript.

Spoiler alert:  Apparently, Joe Biden was born a poor Puerto Rican child. 

That was way before he marched arm-in-arm with Dr. King at Selma, and even further before he drove a truck, which was right around the time he was finishing at the top of his law school class, but well after he bested the dread Corn Pop in a bout of fisticuffs.

So, yeah. That’s our president.

It’s been a long 14 years, and it’s only been 90 weeks.

I am happy to report that Ian’s path spared our town any serious damage.  We were only out of power for a couple of hours, and had only a little rain and a half-day of gusty winds.  I spent part of Friday and Saturday picking up downed palm fronds, Spanish moss and small branches and making multiple pick-up runs to the dump with them.

Between the brief power loss and the cleanup, I didn’t respond to those of you commented on my Thursday column.  But your good wishes and the kind words about my storm-distracted commentary were an excellent picker-upper to read when our power came back on.  

CO nation continues to be a shining outpost among the vast swaths of our country that seem determined to stagger, Biden-like, into error and hostility, so thank you all! 

However, I do have a couple of corrections and a clarification from that last column.

As Larry Garrett pointed out, the deceased congresswoman (Jackie Walorski) whom Brandon expected to show up at his press conference was actually a Republican.  I had misidentified her as a Dem.  (Which is arguably less serious than misidentifying her as a living person. But I’m no president, so…)

Also, the Dem Rhode Island senate candidate who recorded herself twerking upside down was not actually a narwhal.  Although if you’ve seen the video – and I cannot stress enough how much you should NOT – she was, to be fair, at least narwhal-adjacent. 

My clarification involves pointing out that entertaining but troll-y Milton Pinsky’s calling me out for wrongly saying that Dem-run cities have higher crime stats is a big swing and a miss. Mr. Pinsky said – among other wrong things – that “crime rates are actually down in NYC.” 

I point you to the NYPD site https://www1.nyc.gov/site, which reports that the “overall index crime in NYC increased by 31%” year over year to this June, and that “six of the seven major categories saw increases” between 30-41%.  And that’s not accounting for the decreased reporting of crimes by a demoralized and frightened public.

Pinsky also fantasizes that conservative red-state policies allowing law-abiding citizens to protect themselves with guns (per our obsolete old constitution, with its crinkly yellowed paper and high-falutin’ but graceful verbiage) somehow increases the number of non-conservative criminals committing gun crimes in big blue cities.

I don’t know how to respond to that assertion.

Oh wait, yes I do.  In the words of Dr. Evil, “How about no!”

As you might guess, the hurricane is still on my mind.  Reading some of the coverage of the storm provided even more insight into our two main parties’ approaches to governance.

The MSM and leftist pols managed to look at an enormous natural catastrophe that threatened the lives and property of millions of people, and saw two of their favorite obsessions: global warming, and racism. 

One lefty after another delivered one sermon after another about how our capitalist system and our internal combustion engines have angered Gaia, and the result is that we are having more storms – and more intense storms – than ever in all of recorded history. 

These assertions are either data-free, or data-light.  They don’t mention that “all of recorded history” amounts to about 5 minutes of geological time, or that accounts of the frequency, size or strength of hurricanes do not exist from the time the earth cooled until about 1500. 

Or that accounts of the same from 1500 to around 1900 consisted of some folklore, diary entries and a few newspaper accounts citing the number of wooden buildings and boats and docks destroyed, and people killed.  

Even if you look at the EPA’s own records of hurricanes from 1880 – 2020, there is no evidence that hurricanes have been more frequent.  And most stats on the increasing amount of storm damage being done over time is completely explained by the increasing numbers of people and buildings along the coast.  

But still.  Just trust them when they say that if we all get electric cars and solar panels, and elect leftists, there will never be another hurricane again.

Because: science.

“How could they possibly find racism in a hurricane, Martin?” you are not asking, because you’ve watched lefties find racism in roads, and food, and inanimate objects, and barely animate objects (like Que Mala Harris), and everything else in the world.

In an interview a day after Ian struck Florida, our vice president (yes, you’re a racist if you don’t think she’s brilliant) said about natural disasters in general, “It is our lowest income communities and our communities of color that are most impacted by these extreme conditions and impacted by issues that are not of their own making.”

You cannot make this stuff up.

There is an old parody of a headline that the New York Times would print in the face of a disaster:  “Meteor to Strike Earth and Destroy All Life – Women and Minorities Hardest Hit.” 

That’s supposed to be a joke.  But it’s how Kamala Harris – and many in the leftist intelligentsia — actually think. 

As if dark skin attracts high winds, and a person like Lizzie Warren doesn’t have to fear storm surges, because her paleface privilege makes her naturally buoyant. (#wemustneverstopmockingher)

Compare the leftist advice when a hurricane is looming – “Separate your recyclables and hate white folks, and you’ll be safe!” – to the example set by Ron DeSantis.

He was competent and in control, marshalling the resources of his state, preparing for landfall and the aftermath, and following all good-governance best practices.  

Which irritated the MSM to no end, since they had already worked themselves into a Toobin-esque state of anticipation, and pre-written a bunch of stories about how DeSantis had failed the challenge, and the terrible storm response was all his fault.

My favorite part of his approach came on Friday, when he sent a clear message on the subject of post-storm crime.  “We want to make sure we’re maintaining law and order.  Don’t even think about looting.”  He warned potential predators that Florida is a second amendment state, and that “you never know what may be lurking [in] somebody’s home.”

Yes!  Yes, yes, 1000 times yes!  If the simpering Dem castrati running CA, Seattle, Portland, Minneapolis, Kenosha, Chicago etc. had taken this tack, half the country wouldn’t have been terrorized in 2020, and since. 

Anyone who preys on people who have been traumatized by a disaster is the lowest of the low, and deserves a large caliber greeting from their would-be prey.   And that’s not an eccentric, out-lying position unique to DeSantis. 

You can look through social media and find hundreds of examples of signs and painted-on-plywood messages on the theme of, “You loot, we shoot!” or “Loot here, die here!” 

My personal favorite was one from Lee County: “Try to Loot.  I Will Eat Your Face”

Just in case you forgot that Florida Man has both firearms AND bath salts, I guess.

So… do you feel lucky, punk?  If so, prepare to get gut-shot, and then de-faced!

Of course the MSM – who had only just pulled down their gender non-binary one-sies after Italy elected a conservative lady prime minister – yanked them right back up over their heads again, and started wailing. 

They blamed the enthusiasm for ballistically ventilating looters on… wait for it…

Global Warming! 

No, wait a minute.  It was the other one…

Racism! 

Joy(less) Reid, host of the unwatched MSNBC show “I Can’t Reid,” tweeted that encouraging people to shoot looters sounds just like something a racist segregationist would say.

Correction: My crack research staff tells me that Reid’s tv show is called “The ReidOut.”  Honest mistake.

But Reid really did make that argument: if you are willing to shoot criminals who break into your damaged house and try to steal what little personal possessions you have left, you’re an evil bigot.

Apparently none of the lefty spelunkers-for-racism have the self-awareness to realize that there is a word to describe someone who assumes that scumbag predatory looters are naturally going to be black or brown people.

And that word is: racist.   Avennati/ Joy “Bull Connor” Reid, 2024!

I’m writing this column a day earlier than usual, because of the hurricane.  Since we live in the north central part of the state, the forecast is that we should have nothing more than heavy rains and some gusting winds in the 40 mph range at worst. 

But we live in a neighborhood of older houses with lots of century-old oak trees, and overhead power lines.  So I expect that we’ll be out of power at some point within the next 48 hours.  Hence my Friday column is appearing early. 

While we count our blessings here, we are thinking about and praying for the many people in southwestern Florida whose lives and property are at risk right now.  And yes, I know that the phrase “thoughts and prayers” is sneered at by smug sophisticates nationwide, and I’ll give their sentiments all of the deference they deserve.

Which is to say, in the words of Darrell Hammond, as the late great Sean Connery, “Suck it, Trebek!”

So let’s go quickly today, before the electricity flickers out and I’m left here without a candle, to curse the darkness. 

As if this storm wasn’t enough bad news, we also have to contend with the catastrophic prospect that if Trump is the Republican nominee in 2024, Liz Cheney is threatening to leave the GOP and become a Democrat!  But it’s even worse than that, because she is vowing to throw all of her political weight and acumen behind the Democrat candidate, and campaign hard for him or her.

I know.  Stand strong, people.  We got through the Great Depression, and Pearl Harbor, and the speakership of Imhotep Pelosi, and that video of the Dem congress-narwhal twerking upside down in a horrifically overtaxed thong.    

We can get through this.

The funniest part is that she’s talking about possibly joining the Dems in the future.  Lizzie, you’ve said that DeSantis and pretty much every other high-profile Republican are as bad as Trump, and you’ve spent the last year being a useful idiot for the Dem Hypocrite Squad in their January 6th show trial.  

You left the GOP a while ago.   

To the relief of pretty much everyone in the GOP!

Speaking of delusional Dems, did you catch NYC mayor Eric Adam’s comments last week?

In a press conference, he put down Kansas – which, as far as I know, has not been bad-mouthing NYC – in order to praise the amazing city that he and a small army of Dems have been running into the ground for several decades. 

He said these words, which I am not making up: “New York has a brand.  And when people see it, it means something.  Kansas doesn’t have a brand.”

He’s not wrong, because New York does have a brand.  And that brand is, “Failed State™.”

It used to have the affectionate moniker of, “The City that Never Sleeps,” but that’s been replaced by, “The City that Never Stops Financially (and sometimes sexually) Assaulting You.” 

Which isn’t as catchy. 

With the exception of being Lizzie Warren’s moccasin cobbler (#wemustneverstopmockingher) or Imhotep Pelosi’s burial-clothes-re-wrapper, I cannot think of a job I’d hate to have more than the poor ad agency who gets the contract to write the next tourism campaign catch phrase for NYC.

What must that whiteboard look like after everyone commits suicide at the end of a three-day brainstorming session?

“NYC: Come for the Street Crime, Stay for the Racial Hatred!”

“Try our World-Famous Subways, Where Deranged Bums Fight to the Death, and Then You Get to Take on the Winner!”

“Where Else Can You Rent a Broom Closet for $4800, Get Cursed out in 57 Languages, and then Murdered With an Exotic Edged Weapon From a Foreign Land?  Not Kansas!”

“Got Squalor?”

“At Least DiBlasio and Cuomo are Gone!”

The last one is the only even marginally palatable choice.

Meanwhile, the poor saps in Kansas have to tolerate peace and quiet, nature, a reasonable cost of living, and dying at a ripe old age of natural causes, surrounded by their loved ones.  In the meantime, they can buy a house and raise some kids, without either of them being covered with graffiti or gunshot scars. 

Sure, they don’t have people of many races from many lands all getting along together; or a clean, safe, reliable subway system; or the reputation of being a functional, attractive metropolis.

But neither do New Yorkers.   

Find a Mirror, Eric Adams!

In international news, a nice conservative lady has become first female elected leader of Italy in history.  So the feminists and the left broke out into a heartfelt celebration of yet another glass ceiling being broken, and everyone wished her well.  The end. 

HA! I kid because I love.

The first part is true: a conservative woman won in Italy.  I won’t pretend that I know anything about her, or about Italian politics.  Of course, neither does the left.

But they don’t need to, because she had them at “conservative,” which obviously trumps genitalia, skin color, IQ, qualifications, or anything else.

So when the news hit that Italy was having an election, and then that it was won by a conservative person, the socialists on both sides of the ocean did what they always do:  

They wept and gnashed their teeth, tugged their gender non-binary onesies up over their heads, and raced around hysterically until they ran into a solid surface and knocked themselves out cold.   

A typical reaction came from French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne – not to be confused with Jason Bourne, who was resourceful and cool, and not a snooty bureaucratic hack – who gave an interview about 10 minutes after the election, to let the Italian chick know that the honeymoon was over. 

Borne said, “In Europe we have a set of values, and of course, we will be mindful that these values are respected when it comes to human rights.”

We’ve seen those European values of yours, Liz.  If I remember correctly from the way my buddy who peed in Hitler’s bathtub told it, those human rights values were typified by looking the other way while Europe’s Jews were slaughtered, and maintaining healthy trees on both sides of the Champs-Elysees so that the German soldiers would have plenty of shade, whichever direction they were marching.

More valuable input came from the European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen.  And I’m thinking what you’re thinking:  Is that a better name for a Bond villain or a porn star?  Because it’s a good fit for both.

Ursula stated, “We have tools [if Italy is not] willing to work with us.” 

Okay, it’s Bond villain. 

And if you were reading that out loud, you’d want to put the sinister Germanic “v” sound in that “we have tools…”  As in every Gestapo interrogation you’ve ever seen in the movies, which begins, “Ve haf vays of making you talk!”

Okay, the winds are picking up outside, and I could lose power at any minute.  But does that mean that I can close without mentioning Biden asking where the dead lady was in the crowd at his latest press conference?

It does not. 

You know the details by now: GOP congresswoman Jackie Walorski helped organize a conference on hunger, before she died in a car wreck on August 3^rd.  Biden addressed that conference yesterday. 

He slurred his way through a few sentences, thanking “repsntuhv govrnr” (check the transcript – I think that spelling is accurate) among others, before saying, “Representative… Jackie, are you here?  Where’s Jackie?  I think she was uh… she was going to be here.”

If you didn’t laugh, you’d have to cry.

And lest you think WH spokeswoman KJP — she’s attracted to women, so shut up! — couldn’t make it worse, you’d be wrong.  But you’re not, because you didn’t think that, because you’ve been watching this imbecilic circus for the 14 years that Brandon’s been in power.

When even the lapdogs in the MSM had to meekly point out that the president asked if a dead woman was in the crowd, KJP should have said that it was just a faux pas, and moved on.

Instead, she denied that Biden had made a mistake.  He was just listing the pols who contributed to the success of the food insecurity conference.  And he knew she was dead, because he was planning to meet with her family on Friday to sign a bill in her honor.  She was just on the “top of his mind.”

Got it?  He knew she was dead.  That’s why he asked if she was in the room, and then covered for her by saying that,“she was going to be here.”

Far be it from me to try to correct such a historic practitioner of the sapphic arts as KJP, but I think I’ve got a better explanation:

Because he is as close to death as he is, Joe Biden has gained a heightened awareness of those who have crossed over to the other side.   

That’s why he makes it a practice to shake hands with at least one ghost at the end of every speech he gives.  And it’s why he asked if Jackie was with him at the press conference.  Because the WH staff doesn’t let you take a Ouija board to the podium.  Duh.

Just keep saying it to yourself:  November 8^th.  November 8^th.  November 8^th.

Avenatti/ Oddjob von der Leyen, 2024!