Riding the Storm Out in North Florida (posted 9/30/22)

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!