Month: January 2023

I’ll start today by noting that my next Monday column will be a little delayed; I’m going down to a Gulf beach town to hang out with one of the cousins again this weekend, and I won’t get home until late Sunday or Monday. 

Sadly, my awesome wife won’t be along, because she’s got a master gardener class on Saturday.  She’s taken up hydroponic gardening with some gear that I dutifully got her for Christmas, and the results have been amazing.  We’ve already had several salads from her plants, and their growth rate suggests that “hydroponic” might be Latin for “raising food with cocaine or animal growth hormone rather than soil.”

Now that I think about it, I’ve got a ton of energy lately, and my coat has never been more shiny or lustrous!  So I’m going to look into that.

In the meantime, our wacky culture and politics has firehosed a bunch of new stories of ridiculous weirdos at us, so I’m going to pick a few to comment on.

First, in my recurring “Find A Mirror!” series, this week’s entry comes to us via a would-be Olympic athlete named Sha’Carri Richardson.  Her trouble is totally unrelated to the silly apostrophe in her name, even though it does violate one of the well-known rules found in wisdom literature the world over. 

(Don’t get into a land war in Asia.  Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line. Don’t invest with a leftist weirdo like Sam Bankman-Fried.  Never use an apostrophe in your first name.  Etc.)   

The last time we saw Sha’Carri, she was getting tossed off the US Olympic team for smoking weed shortly before the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.  Rather than, you know, preparing for the Olympics WITHOUT smoking weed. Which sounds just crazy enough to work!

Full disclosure: I can’t say that I ever saw her in any Olympic stories or coverage, because football is not in the Olympics, while many goofy sports are. 

(Although there is that one cool sport where people ski around with rifles on their backs, and then stop and shoot things, and then ski some more.  Ever since the Finns cleaned up in that event in the 1930s, and then punched above their weight against the Russians in the Winter War, I’ve got a soft spot for that event.)

(Okay, I just looked it up, and it’s called the “biathlon.”  Which is what I’ve been mistakenly calling Bruce Jenner for the last several years.  Boy, is my face red!)  

Where was I?  Oh yeah. 

If you search Richardson’s name online you’ll find a lot of pictures of her during various races and workouts (between bouts of weed smoking, presumably), and you may notice that her hair was often either orange or yellow.

I only mention this because I am deeply offended by cultural appropriation, and unless there is a Skaarsgard or Hrothgarsdottir in her family tree, she should be ashamed of herself.  (Yes, I’ll say it: she’s the Lizzie Warren of pot-smoking, non-Scandinavian sprinters.) (#wemustneverstopmockingher)

But Richardson’s latest problem has nothing to do with her vestigial apostrophe, or her racially offensive hair color.  It all stems from her advanced case of NUSS (Narcissistic Un-self-aware Snowflake Syndrome), which went from dormant to active on an American Airlines flight on Saturday.

I know what you’re thinking, and let me stop you right there:  Obviously, I normally wouldn’t be able to diagnose a stage-four NUSS case without spending some in-person clinical time with the patient. 

But in this case, Richardson recorded herself throughout the incident, in the delusional belief that she was 100% correct, and that everyone who viewed her video would naturally side with her.  (That belief is actually one of the 7 recognized symptoms of NUSS that you’ll find in the DSM 5.  You can look it up.)

Anyway, our video opens with Richardson making a selfie video on the plane, as the recorded message saying,“turn off personal electronics” is playing.  (Classic NUSS-ster move!) A passing male flight attendant reminds her to turn off her phone in preparation for take-off, and she immediately NUSSes out on him:

“I’m recording me, but you jumped in my video, so I caught you because you jumped in my video. You’re harassing me at this point, so I think you should stop.”

Over the next ten minutes she escalates, getting louder and more profane as other passengers make it clear that they don’t agree that she’s the fixed point around which the entire solar system revolves. 

She also gestures dramatically with her boxcutter-length fake fingernails (NUSS Symptom 4), and compulsively flutters her small-badger-sized false eyelashes (Symptom 5).   

When the captain finally gets involved and orders her off the flight, her first question is, “Is [the flight attendant] going to be removed off the plane as well?”  Then she asks if the captain can come to her seat so that she can make him “understand the situation.”  (Symptom 2) She also insists that the flight attendant is at fault because he “invaded [her] privacy” by intruding on her video. (Symptom 3) 

Also, she informs one of her fellow passengers that, “I’m still a superstar, and you’re a regular person.” (Symptom 1: NUSS Symptom Bingo!)

As she finally leaves the plane, many passengers applaud.

Now generally, receiving applause creates one of life’s most enjoyable moments. 

For example, during my career as a professor, I would often receive rounds of applause, and not just because my funny and thought-provoking lectures weren’t forcing anyone to miss a connecting flight to Dallas.  And even when my students would hoist me on their shoulders and carry me out of the classroom chanting, “Simp-son, Simp-son!” they weren’t applauding the fact that I was leaving the building.

Sure, maybe those tales are slightly exaggerated, or maybe in some cases – technically speaking – “imaginary.” 

And maybe some of the polite applause I often received had something to do with the fact that I had total power over my students’ grades, so they were like Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.

(And that’s how you score in the category of “Puritan Sermon References” on Jeopardy, people.)  

Still, it is a major red flag when you meet several hundred people for the first time, and 11 minutes later they are cheering as you are forcibly driven from among them.

Therefore, Sha’Carri Richardson, you need to…

 Find a Mirror! 

Okay, so I spent a little more time than I planned on Sha’Carri.  So I’ll just touch on two more subjects.

1. When I used to stress the importance of grammar to my students, I cited the example that there is only one punctuation mark separating a Norman Rockwell painting – “Let’s eat, Grandma! – from a Grimm’s Fairy Tale – “Let’s eat Grandma!”

If I were still teaching today, I’d now have a better example: 

When Karine Jean-Pierre continually says, “Biden takes classified documents seriously!” she is very close to the truth. 

Which is, “Biden takes classified documents.  Seriously!”

2. Another great story this week involved human Ken-doll Gavin Newsom walking down a CA street talking to a reporter about guns.  Of course, Newsom is against them, and the Monterey Park shooting gave him the occasion to bloviate that “the 2^nd amendment shouldn’t be a suicide pact!” 

(Huzzah!  Someone had to bravely confront the powerful “We want a suicide pact!” lobby, and ol’ Gavin was just the Empty Haircut for the job!)  

I couldn’t help but laugh at his ability to pivot instantly (the lowly earthworm has nothing on Gav when it comes to spinelessness) when the reporter reminded him that many Americans “support the 2^nd Amendment and are lawful gun owners.”

Newsom’s immediate response, before the reporter could even finish her sentence: “I, I, support… have great respect for… no ideological opposition to someone reasonably, responsibly owning firearms.”

Got that?  Newsom supports and has great respect and no ideological opposition to those of you who bitterly cling to your suicide pact of wanting some means of self-defense.  So vote for him!

I also got a kick out of the way that the national Dems jumped the gun (so to speak) to cite the Monterey Park shooting as yet another example of white supremacist gun violence.  Because it shortly came out that the shooter was named Thurston Howell the Third. 

Check and mate, racist defenders of white privilege!

Oh no, wait.  The shooter in that case was a pasty Boston Brahmin named Huu Can Tran.

Also, the shooter in one of the other two mass shootings this week in Cali was an old pale Mainer (ayuh!) named Chunli Zhao.  (Yes: of the Bangor Zhaos.  You’ll find many of his ancestors in the old Revolutionary War cemeteries dotted about New England.)    

The killer or killers in the third CA shooting have not yet been identified, but their victims have names like Eladio, Marcos, Rosa and Elyssa, and the murders have been described as “cartel-like.”

So obviously, there should be an APB out for Tilda Swinton and Edgar Winter.

But the best part of Gavin’s big adventure was the visual of him walking along in public, in his short sleeves, totally unarmed, putting his money where his mouth is by providing a brave example that nobody in California needs to carry a gun.

Except that if you look very, very closely, you might notice a subtle detail in the background.

Okay, it’s not that subtle.  And by “the background,” I mean within 10 feet of the gov at all times.

Yes, it’s three beefy guys with short hair, dark glasses and their heads on swivels.

And — I’m going out on a limb here – they’re all carrying guns. 

Because if there’s one thing the anatomically incorrect Governor of California is against, it’s Suicide Pacts!

Fetterman/ Chunli “Cotton Mather” Zhao, 2024!

January still has 8 more days, and already the “Biggest Dunce of the Month” competition has an over-crowded field.  Let’s look at 5 of them, shall we?

1.  The British Museum has tragically succumbed to advanced wokeness, having recently decided to stop using the word “mummy.” To spare the feelings of easily triggered 3000-year-old cadavers, I guess?

“So what do I call a mummy?” you’re not asking, because you’ve got a life to lead and you’re not an imbecile.

The proper term now is either “mummified person” or “mummified remains.” 

Ugh.  Are we going to going to have to discuss mummy pronouns next?

Even the National Museum of Scotland has joined in the insanity.  One of their spokeswomen said that they either use a mummy’s individual name (if known), or else “mummified, man, woman, boy, girl or person.”

Which opens a whole ‘nother can of worms.  (Sorry: a whole ‘nother can of “soft-bodied invertebrates belonging to the phylum Annelida.”) (See? You learned something here today, didn’t you?) (Also, when you read “soft-bodied invertebrates,” how many of you instinctively thought of Jerry Nadler?)

Anyway, all phyla aside (Boom! Irregular Latin plurals for $1000!), why don’t the insensitive clods in Scottish and British museums consider that saying “mummified man or woman” could be mis-gendering them? 

And you cannot say, “I judged based on the mummified phallus on that mummy.”  Because if academics have taught us anything lately – and the jury may still be out on that – it’s that women can have phalluses too.  (Yes, I could have also said “phalli.”  Don’t get pedantic with me when I’m on a roll.)

Now where was I?  Oh yeah.

When you read “mummified phallus,” how many of you instinctively thought of either Bill Clinton, Dick “nobody calls him ‘Richard’” Durbin, or Richard “everyone secretly calls him ‘Dick’” Blumenthal?

Okay, this first item has gone totally off the rails. 

But only because extending the woke lunacy to the point of trying to protect the feelings of people who have been dead since before Bernie Sanders got out of middle school is so ridiculous.

Even if you accepted the premise, though, here is a short list of things that mummies would be more worried about – if they could worry about anything – than being called “mummies”:

a. Being associated in any way with Imhotep Pelosi.

b. Whether these burial wrappings make their butts look too big.

c. Having had their brains scrambled and removed with iron hooks, leaving them with the cognitive function of AOC.

In related news, I will be calling a press conference tomorrow announcing that we should no longer call dullard politicians, “idiots.” Instead, I decree the favored alternatives to be either, “Idiotic Person,” or “Person Stricken with Idiocy.”

Or, in the case of Joe Biden, “Idiotic Remains.”

2. Speaking of “Person Stricken with Idiocy,” have you heard Chicago Mayor (and part-time river carp impersonator) Lori Lightfoot’s latest masterstroke to fight the kind of crime that has totally coincidentally skyrocketed since she became mayor?

It’s not something that amateurs like you or I would suggest.  (Ideas like, “How about we allow cops to chase violent criminals again?  And if they flash a gun, shoot them a lot?  Or maybe run them over with their cop cars? And if the thugs survive all that, put them in jail for a long time?”)

No, she’s an expert, and she offered what she called “concrete solutions” to make Chicagoans safer.  (And not the type of “concrete solutions” that you or I might suggest.  Like, “When a criminal rapes or murders someone, let’s put the criminal’s feet in a block of wet concrete, wait until it cures, and then throw him into Lake Michigan.”)

Here’s her big idea: vendors and store owners should “[do] things to protect themselves like not using cash.”

Brilliant!  They can’t rob you if you don’t have any money!

Luckily, after another couple of years of Biden stumbling around the White House, Pritzker waddling around the IL governor’s mansion and Lightfoot dividing her time between socialist racism and racist socialism, nobody in the city will have any of that super-dangerous money any more.

Problem solved!

3.   Let’s stay on the racism beat for a moment. 

Democrat Sheila Jackson Lee was first elected to Congress 29 years ago, and since then she’s done more damage to Texas than the Galveston Hurricane of 1900.   Her latest proposed bill may be her worst yet.

It seeks to criminalize what she calls, “conspiracy to commit white supremacy,” which she defines as any criticism of non-white people that she thinks might have influenced anyone who later commits a hate crime.  It would empower the DOJ – because they’ve been batting 1000 lately, haven’t they? – to go after the kind of evil folks who would criticize any non-white people.

That’s right.  She is proposing an explicitly racially discriminatory law against speech that she doesn’t like. 

If only there were a constitutional amendment that spoke to this issue.  (I’m no constitutional scholar, but if such an amendment did exist, I’d put it First!)

There are only two silver linings I see on this non-white cloud:

First, if it passed, racist Democrat Cori Bush could be the first one prosecuted, since she recently slandered impressive black Republican congressmen Byron Donalds.  (And then charges could be pressed against almost all of the Dems in congress, since they’ve been denigrating Clarence Thomas for 30 years.) 

Second, this proposal ensures that when Sheila Jackson Lee finally leaves congress, she won’t have to wait around through a series of contentious votes to get into the Moron Hall of Fame.  Because she is now officially a lock: she is a first-ballot Hall of Fame Moron if ever there was one.

4. Amidst the insanity of our blue-state law enforcement follies, there was a feel-good story last week out of CA.  

In 2019, a 15-year-old apprentice sociopath named Kristopher-with-a-“K” Baca sent a teen girl to the hospital after spiking her drink with some kind of poison.  He was convicted of a felony, and because he was in CA, he got a stern talking-to, and probation.

When he was still on probation at 16, Special “K” got high and intentionally drove a car at a young mother and her 8-month baby.  He hit them and tried to run, but was caught.  (Miraculously, mother and child both survived.)  

It was a high-profile case because the depraved crime was caught on video.  So the Soros-funded LA County DA George Gascon (from guess which party?) really threw the book at him. 

He gave him 5 whole months in a “diversionary program,” which is woke-speak for “summer camp for future victimizers.”  His record would be wiped clean when he turns 18.

So how is that a feel-good story, you ask. 

Well, Baca is not going to poison or run-down anyone else, because he was shot to death by another criminal last week.  (And THAT criminal better hope he doesn’t get caught, because then he’ll be in for some harsh language and a mark on his permanent report-card from DA Gascon!)

Though I would not normally take the death of a teenager lightly, Gascon and his leftist co-religionists treated Baca much more harshly than I would have.  Because if he was serving the sentence he should have originally gotten, he’d still be alive right now, with at least a chance to come out of jail as a marginally smarter 50-year-old.

5. What list of mind-boggling dumb-assery would be complete without a reference to Joe and Hunter Biden?

One fascinating sub-plot in the karmically entertaining classified documents story involves the unveiling of Hunter Biden’s sworn statements that for a year, he was paying the Big Guy $50,000 per month to rent his Delaware home.

This tale has the possibility of going wrong in many hilarious ways:

• Joey Gaffes didn’t declare any of that income on his taxes, which is not technically “legal.”
• His house should apparently fetch a fair-market rent of more like $6-8K per month, tops.
• Could the unjustifiably high rent be the way Hunter got the illicit ChiCom cash to Joe?
• Will the feds dust the classified docs in the garage for meth dust and hooker glitter?

I’m looking forward to a grifters’ family feud.  Hunter said he gave daddy $50-large each month, and Brandon says he didn’t.   

Who is lying here?  The delusional perv or the other guy?

Wait.  Let me be more specific: the delusional (because of all the meth) perv (with the home movies of him with hookers)? 

Or the other delusional perv – delusional because of the dementia, and perv because of all the “Gee your Hair Smells Terrific” moves he put on every young girl who came within arm’s reach of him?

Either way, somebody’s lying. 

And I’m going long on popcorn stock. 

Fetterman/ Gender-non-binary Mummified Person, 2024!

You know who’s having a tough after-life?

I mean besides Jeffrey Epstein, and Bernie Madoff, and the late Joe Biden (RIP)?

Martin Luther King Jr. 

He left a commendable legacy of righteous oratory, non-violence and Christian resistance to racism. One of his most stirring exhortations – the wish that all people would be judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin – has provided a ringing, scathing rebuke of the tribalist race hustlers who push the divisive poison of racial discrimination under the banner of affirmative action.  

And yet, his memory has taken some slings and arrows in recent years.  Revelations of his flaws have dented the hagiographic earlier portraits of him.  From exposure of his plagiarized dissertation to evidence that (to put it nicely) he was as fond of the ladies as Karine Jean-Pierre is, he has been shown to have had feet of clay (as do we all).

But even more disheartening have been the acts of others in his wake.  The baton of “civil rights activist” that King passed on was grabbed by a series of diminished and unworthy figures, from self-serving demagogues like Jesse Jackson to racial arsonist conmen like Al Sharpton, to many thousands of whitey-hating BLM rioters.

It’s also not great that wherever you go in this country, the worst and most dangerous street in every city is named after him. 

But things got still worse in the last week.  First, a modern artist armed with a ton of gullible non-profit money created a statue in Boston meant to honor MLK, but inadvertently provided a modern-day version of the Emperor has No Clothes fable.

When the gigantic bronze rendition of two off-puttingly disembodied, entwined arms was unveiled, many people dutifully said what a wonderful abstract tribute it was. 

But a cousin of Coretta Scott King summarized the authentic reaction best: “The mainstream media… was reporting on it like it was all beautiful, ‘cause they were told they had to say that.  But then when it came out, a little boy pointed out – ‘That’s a penis!, and everyone was like, ‘Yo, that’s a big old dong, man.’”

Yo, indeed.  

To be fair, from some angles it appears to be merely weird.  The hands are well-rendered, and the buttons on the sleeve of one arm make it clear that the item in question is clearly an arm.  Because as far as I know, no gigantic male appendage has ever had buttons on it.  (Cue the NBC “The More You Know” music.)

But from many other angles, the delicate MSM first take on it – “There has been a mixed reaction” – seems uncomfortably accurate.  Because most people who don’t think it looks like a phallus, argue that it looks like… an enormous bowel movement.

Ugh.  Why could every other age do statues better than people today? 

No one ever looked at Lincoln in his monument or Jefferson in his, or at (my favorite) US Grant’s equestrian statue (love that guy!) in front of the capitol building, and said, “That looks like human waste!” or “That reminds me of a male organ.”

(And if any of you knuckleheads are about to mention the Washington monument to me, grow up!)

At this point I’m sure many of you are thinking, “How can a weekend that starts with a tribute to you that looks like a giant pile of Schiff on the Boston Common get any worse?”

I’ll tell you how: Joe Biden gets involved.

I refer of course to Biden’s two speeches on MLK weekend, the first of which was at Ebenezer Baptist Church on Sunday, and the second of which was on Monday.  

Both efforts had all the hallmarks of an oratorical multiple-car pile-up that we’ve come to expect from the Cadaver in Chief.  And like any fiery car crash, it was hard to look away.   

He gave Monday’s speech at an event created by Al Sharpton’s “National Action Network,” which is like the Star Wars bar scene, only with virulently racist grifters.  Biden’s first move was to croak out two words into a mic that wasn’t on, then to clear his throat and mess with the mic, asking, “Is this on?  Hello, hello, hello?”

He was 8 seconds in, and already any sane people in the crowd were praying that he’d pull a Fetterman: “Hello, goodnight everybody!”

But alas, he continued.  He repeatedly coughed and cleared his throat, then thanked and praised creepy anti-Semite Sharpton, then launched into singing “Happy Birthday” to MLK III’s wife.   If you missed it, I’ll just say that Biden is to good singing as Lizzie Warren is to being a Native American.  (#wemustneverstopmockingher)

But it was almost worth sitting through the first two fingernails-on-a-chalkboard lines, just to hear the third line. 

It turns out that MLK III’s wife’s name is “Arndrea,” which – all due respect – is weird, and not easy to say.

How close did Joe get?   I’ll let you be the judge, as I accurately recreate what I swore I heard him sing: “Happy birthday dear… [hesitantly, and much quieter] Val…id.” 

So close!

Then Biden laid a little ridiculously unearned praise on Imhotep Pelosi (“Happy 2043^rd birthday to Nancy, happy birthday to you!”)  

At this point we were about a minute in, and the highlights of the speech were already over.

On a day when you’d think a national leader could give partisan rancor a rest, and just memorialize a unifying figure, you’d be wrong.  Because Biden’s speech was a mishmash of tried-and-true lowlights from his typically divisive, vitriolic past speeches:

Racial pandering – He claimed that car insurance is racist, and that homes owned by blacks are worth less than similar homes owned by whites.

Demonizing the police – “We have to retrain cops.  Why should you always shoot with deadly force? If you need to use your weapon, you don’t have to do that.”  (That’s right, just shoot them in the leg, says Dead-Eye Joe.)

Second amendment ignorance – “Ban the number of bullets that can go in a magazine.” (If we’re going to start banning numbers, let’s start with 13, because I think it’s unlucky.)  He repeated his old saw that “you don’t need an AR-15 to hunt, since deer don’t wear Kevlar vests.”

He also said that, “If you want to take on the government, you need F-15s, not AR-15s.”  Which raises an interesting question: if AR-15s are no threat to the government, why have you loudly insisted that a few hundred unarmed people (not an AR-15 in the crowd!) came within a whisker of overthrowing the federal government on January 6^th?

He fell back into that jarring, the-call-is-coming-from-inside-the-house whispering thing he does. At one point he claimed that any GOP bills would be disastrous, and that, “if any of these bills happen to reach my desk… [begin ultra-creepy whisper] I will veto them.”

And he proved once again that nobody does dishonest projection like Joey Gaffes: “They’re gonna talk about big-spending Democrats again.  Guess what?  I reduced the deficit last year $350 billion.  This year, federal deficit is down $1 trillion plus.  That’s a fact.”

And a rain of Pinocchios felt gently down upon the crowd.

A few sentences later he said that the GOP is causing inflation (!).  “These guys are fiscally demented, I think.”   

Said Captain Dementia, sailing the USS Delusional on the Sea of Unreality, toward the Port of Unhinged Derangement. 

Yikes!

His Sunday speech at Ebenezer Baptist Church wasn’t any better.  In yet another example of his unhinged re-writing of his own biography, Biden claimed to have been practically raised in the black church: “Let’s lay one thing to rest. I may be a practicing Catholic, but [I] used to go to 7:30 Mass every morning in high school and then in college before I went to the Black church.  Not a joke.”

No, it’s not a joke. 

It’s way too sad for that. 

But we are cautious optimists, and Joey is sinking, and 2024 is coming!

Fetterman/ Valid King III, 2024!

Let’s open with that timeless and always relevant question: Will the current surfeit of lefty idiocy that provides me with constant fodder for one mocking column after another continue indefinitely? 

If you’ll allow me a moment to consult the Magic 8-Ball that I usually only use for picking stocks and sports betting…

The answer is, “Signs point to yes.”

In support of the 8-ball, I offer you three stories ripped from the last few days’ headlines.

First, the latest contretemps over the Biden administration’s trial balloon suggesting they might force Americans to get rid of gas stoves, following by a storm of backlash from all directions, followed by bumbling retreats, “corrections,” and obfuscation.

The pattern is familiar by now:  The left claims that something that everyone has been familiar with for decades, or centuries, or sometimes millennia – regular toilets, national borders, the internal combustion engine, the two genders that actually exist – is destroying our country, or the planet, or life itself. Plus it’s racist, or sexist, or homophobic, or “not who we are.” 

So we must ban it, and pursue anyone who resists with the obsessive creepiness of the late Joe Biden cornering a young woman with freshly washed hair.

Enter the humble gas stove, which works better than the alternative, and has never hurt anyone.  (Before any of you literary types bring up Sylvia Plath to me, that’s beneath both of us.)

But contrary to all common sense, several federal agencies have now come forth with the dire news that the gas stove that you’ve used all your life with no adverse consequences actually causes everything from cardiovascular problems to cancer to respiratory problems. 

Also housemaid’s knee, the heartbreak of psoriasis, and restless leg syndrome.  Plus ennui and existential despair, as far as you know.    

Fortunately for the Dems, you don’t need a gas stove to gaslight people, which is a skill they’ve perfected through long practice.  Unfortunately for them, people who know anything about cooking know that electric stoves are far inferior, as suggested by all of the electric stoves that cannot be found in any good restaurants anywhere. 

Also, I’ve done my research, and found that electric stoves are powered by electricity.  (Cue the NBC “The More you Know” theme song.)  And the majority of electricity is generated by coal, nuclear power, and… wait for it… natural gas.

Got that?  We all need to waste the GDP of several first-world nations getting rid of our gas stoves and replacing them with electric stoves.  Which are powered by gas. 

Also coal.  Or else the kind of nuke that scared the pants off of the young (and stupid) commie-enthusiast Jane Fonda in The China Syndrome.    

But no dumb political story would be complete without the input of our favorite incompetent ex-bartenderess, AOC.  She took to Twitter (Pay Elon $8, wench!) to claim that gas stoves “have been linked to reduced cognitive performance.” 

Seventeen seconds later, many people pointed out that in AOC’s past posts she has recorded herself cooking on a… no need to wait for it because you already saw this coming… gas stove!

All of which prompted me to ask the obvious scientific question:  Has a causal link been found between using a gas stove and developing a “juicy booty” (her words, not mine)? 

Because if you put together “cognitively damaged” and “juicy booty,” I feel like I may be able to dramatically reveal the mysterious “Patient Zero” for the dangers of gas stoves.   

Speaking of cognitively damaged, poor old Andrea Mitchell is still alive and on tv (if MSNBC counts as “on tv”), and I’m as surprised about that as you are.

During a story on abortion battles this past week, Mitchell interrupted her own colleague when he accurately said that a female GOP politician “described herself as ‘pro-life.’”

Mitchell couldn’t let that stand, and said, “Garrett, let me just interrupt and say that ‘pro-life’ is a term that they — an entire group wants to use. But that’s not an accurate description.”  That caught the reporter flat-footed, and he finally said, “I’m using it because it’s the term she used to describe herself, Andrea.”

In a sane world with reasonable journalistic standards, Mitchell’s blatant partisan bias would shock all 7 of her viewers, and mark her as someone not to be trusted to do any objective reporting.  But this isn’t that kind of world, and her comments are par for the MSM course.

Before my recent retirement, I taught persuasive writing for many years, and one of the baseline principles I taught was as old as Aristotle (and thus almost as old as Imhotep Pelosi): grant both sides of any debate the respect of using their own chosen terms, unless and until your own argument addresses the accuracy of those terms.

If you know that people most call “Mormons” prefer the label “LDS,” you use the latter.  If you know that “Indians” now prefer “Native Americans,” you grit your teeth and compromise, calling them “Lizzie Warrens.”  (#wemustneverstopmockingher)  

No righty trying to persuade any uncommitted persuade-ables would initially frame an abortion debate by referring to the “pro-life and pro-death,” positions, just as no reasonably lefty would refer to “pro-choice and anti-choice.”  (I know: many of them do just that.  Those are not the reasonable ones, and they are tuned out by anyone not in their camp.)

Mitchell has been a “journalist” since Hadrian built his wall, and has to know better.  But she can’t help herself.  In the short run-up to insulting the guy who called the pro-life politician “pro-life,” she introduced the story with typical bias.  She described the debate as “passing two anti-abortion bills, despite a majority of Americans saying abortion should be legal.” 

Leave aside the option of calling the bills “pro-life bills” or even just “abortion bills,” and look at her spinning/editorializing.  While it’s technically true that a majority of Americans say that abortions in some situations should be legal, it’s equally true that only a tiny minority say that it should be legal until the moment of birth, which is the de facto national Democratic position now.

I know you all know this, but the dishonesty of our MSM is so persuasive and blatant that it can be hard to take, even for those with the strength of ten men, such as your humble Roving Correspondent. 

How many times can we listen to them describing fighting voting fraud as “voter suppression,” or treating all races equally as “racism,” or denying biological reality through mutilating surgery as “gender affirmation?”

The old cliché is true: every word out of their mouths is a lie, including “and” and “the.”

But perhaps the most perfectly emblematic of leftist knuckleheads in the news this week was environmentalist doomsayer Paul Ehrlich, a “scientist” who is now 90.  Unfortunately for him, his long life has meant that he has been around long enough to see all of his attention-getting predictions proven to be mortifyingly wrong.

His most famous book, The Population Bomb (1968) made very bold predictions, and every one of them blew up in his face.  He said that by 1980 “all important animal life in the sea will be extinct,” and the “stench of dead fish” would force the evacuation of large areas of coastline.

He predicted massive, world-wide famines and die-offs in the ‘80s and ‘90s, and said that England would no longer exist by the year 2000.  His unerringly wrong Malthusian prognostications arose from his inability to account for human adaptability and ingenuity, and his leftist politics melded perfectly with his preference for big government coercion rather than allowing people the freedom to make their own choices.

Like many progressive alarmists, he waxed eloquent about the virtues of sterilizing millions of people and “reducing the surplus population,” to quote his ideological soulmate, Ebeneezer Scrooge. 

Also like many of those who call for such actions, he hypocritically did not go first.  He’s been here for 90 years, consuming precious resources, annoying and scaring gullible people, and selfishly refusing to die. 

My favorite part of his life story is when free-market economist Julian Simon famously put Ehrlich’s predictions to the test.  Ehrlich was confident that upcoming shortages would drive up the price of key resources, so Simon challenged him to pick any 5 commodities he liked (he chose tin, tungsten, nickel, chromium and copper), and bet $1000 that their prices in 10 years (1990) would be higher. 

Of course Ehrlich was wrong, and all five were cheaper when the bet ended.

Again, in a sane world, Ehrlich’s long record of error and failure would mark him as a derided and discredited quack.

So naturally, he was interviewed by Scott Pelley on 60 Minutes, and treated as if he were a wise elder statesman who should be listened to.   Only a leftist could turn a 70-year career of being wrong about everything into fame, fortune and an academic sinecure (in his case, at Stanford). 

But none of that makes him the archetypal academic leftist.  That dishonor arises from his pristinely delusional insistence that reality counts for nothing, compared to the approval garnered from leftist group-think.    

Here is his latest tweet, which I swear I am not making up: “60 Minutes extinction story has brought the usual right-wing out in force.  If I’m always wrong so is science, since my work is always peer-reviewed, including the POPULATION BOMB and I’ve gotten virtually every scientific honor. Sure I’ve made some mistakes, but no basic ones.”

Is that not perfect? It’s got everything:

• Anyone who notices that there are still fish in the oceans, humanity hasn’t died of starvation, and England still exists is a right-wing nut.
• He is THE SCIENCE (™ Tony Fauci, 2021)
• His work is peer-reviewed and honored by his political co-religionists, which obviously trumps the fact that reality didn’t cooperate.
• He predicted half a dozen apocalypses and the opposite happened each time, but those mistakes are not “basic” ones.

A tweeter may have summed it up best: 

Okay, Doomer. 

Fetterman/ Paul “The Sky is Falling!” Ehrlich 2024!

This past weekend I struggled with a very rare situation, so rare in fact that it threw me seriously off-balance, forcing me to take to my recliner with a double shot of bourbon until I could get my legs back under me.

I was wrong about something. 

(I can hear my wife laugh at that, though she’s not read it yet.  Even my Wonder Dog, lying at my feet as I write – as is her wont – just gave me a side-eye accompanied by a slight tilt of her head.)

I was wrong about the Speaker debates.  Last week I wrote a column in which I referred to “the House speaker debacle,” and called it a “clown show.”  I took that tack out of frustration by what seemed like another example of GOP incompetence. 

When the Dems took over with a very slim margin in the House, they immediately got in lockstep, elected the mummified harridan (AIEEE! Kill her with fire!) to lead them, and got about the business of damaging our country, as quickly and efficiently as any other robotic socialists you may remember from your history books.

By contrast, when we get a small majority, we immediately fall to in-fighting, and the MSM and the Dems (but I repeat myself) are only too happy to cheer and jeer from the sidelines.

That’s where I went wrong.  Because I’ve found this general rule to be reliably true: any time the leftists are cheering something, that thing is bad for the country, and for conservatives.

But upon reflection, I think this time might be the exception that proves the rule.  Because as far as I can tell, nothing bad came out of the multiple ballot exercise. 

Sure, Congress was prevented from doing anything for the four days of negotiation.  (As I said: nothing bad.)

But the concessions that the conservatives won at least move in the right direction:

• McCarthy agreed to hold separate votes on 12 different appropriations bills, rather than allowing them to be bundled into the disgusting joke that is one ginormous omnibus bill each year.
• He agreed to cap discretionary spending at the levels they were when Biden stumbled into office.
• He agreed to the subcommittee on the “Weaponization of the Federal Government,” and to not using PAC money to mount primary challenges in safe House seats, along with a variety of other procedural changes that the conservatives wanted.
• He will appoint more House conservatives to various important committee positions.
• He also agreed to allow any single House member to start the process of attempting to remove a Speaker. 

While that last step is a useful shot across the bow for McCarthy (reminding him that he can’t afford to cavalierly dismiss the concerns of the conservative wing of the party), it also potentially enables near-constant battles anytime any member disapproves of any move McCarthy makes,

But I’m cautiously optimistic that that won’t happen.  First because it incentivizes McCarthy to avoid crossing conservatives on any major issues.  And second, because it disincentivizes members from frivolously or repeatedly employing that tactic for personal, petty or unserious reasons. 

No member’s career is going to be helped if he repeatedly forces votes to try to knock off the speaker, only to have the motion look like a stunt, as it gets lopsidedly voted down, over and over again.   

Are these perfect concessions?  They are decidedly not. 

But the depressing reality is that the GOP has a slim majority in one house.  It doesn’t matter who the speaker is — any conservative bills they pass will get shot down in the Senate or vetoed by Biden.

But having said that, the House can stop the Dems from passing any legislation, and they can take at least partial control of the national agenda, by investigating Dem malfeasance (from Hunter, to the border, to big tech collaboration with the feds, to Fauci’s misinfo on covid). 

They can shed light on the damage that Biden has done and continues to do to the country, and thus provide ammunition for the eventual GOP presidential nominee to use in 2024.  

In fact, I’m encouraged by McCarthy’s first few steps.  He passed the bill to reverse the hiring of 87K more IRS agents, and he threw Pelosi’s strong-arm tactic back in the Dems’ face, by tossing three of the many lefty stooges (Omar, Swalwell, and Schiff) off of their previous committees.

And all of that, even though it’s far from perfect, was well worth a four-day fight in the House. So mea culpa. 

Two other stories caught my eye this weekend, one grim and one hilarious.

The grim one was the Dems’ repulsive, almost unanimous opposition to the bill requiring that a child who is born alive after a botched abortion must be given medical care.  That bill is almost unique in recent years, in that it is actually honestly named.  (Unlike the “Affordable Health Care Act” that raises the cost of health care, or the “Inflation Reduction Act” that drastically increases inflation, etc.)

The bill is called The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act.  Because it applies to those who were born alive, having survived an abortion attempt. And it protects them.  Imagine that! 

My own pro-life views aside, I think most of the country is somewhere in the middle – leaning at least slightly pro-life – on abortion.  Most folks want exceptions for rape, incest and life-endangerment of the mother, and would allow the morning-after pill and early-term abortions, while supporting restrictions after week 15 or so.

On this issue, as on so many others, the national Democrat party is radically extreme.  In little more than a generation, they’ve gone from a “safe, legal and rare” pro-choice stance, to a “shout your abortion” pro-abortion stance.  Within the last year, every high-profile Dem has refused to say that s/he would EVER oppose any abortion, even up until the moment of birth. 

This new bill sheds some much-needed light on the moral and scientific untenability of that position. 

Realistically, this bill will likely not affect many newborns each year, since even the most incompetent and ham-handed abortionists are in a heartbreakingly unfair fight, and are not likely to lose that fight so badly that a defenseless baby can survive their violence. (Still, if it saves only one newborn….)

But that’s beside the point, which is that the bill reveals a crucial reality.  Once a baby (or “tissue mass,” or “product of conception”) is physically outside of the mother’s (sorry, the “birthing person’s”) body, it is obviously no longer “the mother’s body.”  (I know: it had a separate heartbeat, brainwaves and DNA, so it never was.)

Even the most dimwitted and fanatical abortion supporter can see and understand that. And yet only one House Democrat voted to provide medical treatment for a baby once it has been completely, undeniably, born.      

If we can bring this truth before the American people, and the Democrats don’t pay a price for this vote, our country is in worse shape than I think it is.

Let’s end on a happier note, shall we?

Remember when Trump had some documents which had once been classified, and he took them to Mar-a-Lago after he left the White House?  And remember how as the president he had the uncontested constitutional power to declassify them, and how there was no evidence that he had ever passed any of them on to any other country anyway?

And remember how Biden, the national Democrats and the MSM all blustered and bloviated, and got their gender non-binary one-sies tugged up over their heads in outrage at what a reckless and treasonous thing it was for any president to keep such documents outside of highly secure government custody and control?  

I know you do, and that you know where I’m going:

Because God exists, and He loves us, and He’s still in the “reap what ye sow” bidness, He is in the process of serving up a deluge of sweet, sweet karma raining down on Joey Gaffe’s empty, liver-spotted head. 

First it turns out that Biden had left some classified documents in a U Penn office that he hasn’t been to in four years.  Then it turns out that he also left some secret docs in a room in his Delaware home.  Then it turns out that he also left some in a locked garage in that same house.

So far, the best defense the Cadaver in Chief has been able to come up with is to say, “By the way, my Corvette is in a locked garage, OK?”

Ummm, no.  That’s not okay.  We don’t care where your Corvette is.  Foreign nations are not trying to get into your garage and steal your Corvette.

Fang Fang didn’t put up with the smell and the low IQ while banging Eric Swalwell just to pick up some pillow talk about where you keep your ‘Vette, you hypocritical old coot!

The story is only a few days old, but it’s already more entertaining than a Liz Warren tale of that time when she led a raiding party on some white settlers, astride the Palomino she named “Lenin.”  (#wemustneverstopmockingher)

High profile Dems have been spinning for all they’re worth.  Congress-imbecile Hank Johnson, who once worried openly about the chance that Guam might capsize if too many people occupied our military base on one end of that island (I swear I’m not making that up), suggested that the Biden docs may have been “planted.”

The defective-noggin crew at the View said the same.  Schumer and MSM talking heads on every little-watched channel have been touting reasons why Trump’s confidential docs were very different and much worse than Biden’s. 

Meanwhile, KJP – she vacations on the island of Lesbos, so any criticism of her is invalid – is sweating like a Que Mala in church, and melting down into stammering incoherence.

Break out the popcorn, because watching these virtue-signaling hypocrites squirming and spinning is going to be fun!

Fetterman/ Hank “Guam is Sinking!” Johnson 2024!

0-0-0

If you enjoyed this column, please share it.  To see more of Martin’s past columns, go to Martinsimpsonwriting.com, and click “Follow” to receive a notice when new columns post. 

First I’d like to apologize because this column is a day late.  (But not a dollar short, I hope.)  Two of my cousins were in Florida for a break from IL in January, and I was making rather merry with them in the Sarasota area for the entire weekend.

But I see that we now have a new majority leader in the House, and as always when Republicans gain a smidgen of power, I am agnostic, but (to coin a phrase) cautiously optimistic.  At the very least, we can celebrate a new speaker who’s going to have some pressure on him to resist the left.

We also know that the speaker is not going to be race-hustling election denier Hakeem Jeffries, or Universal Pictures’ classic monster Imhotep Pelosi. (Nancy Pelosi IS Boris Karloff AS the mummy IN “The Mummy!”)  So we’re already moving in the right direction.

After a weekend of not paying attention to any national news, I got home last night and took a quick spin around the internet, and found two stories I think are worth sharing.

First up is another stupid criminal story.  This one is from February of 2020, although Breitbart just posted about it now.  It’s the tale of super-genius Edward Flemming, who in January of that year stole a Ford Fusion and was arrested for it.

You read that right: a carjacker, with many makes and models of vehicles from which to choose as the object of his larcenous attentions, chose a Ford Fusion. 

Again: super-genius. 

Fast Eddie was given a 2/25/20 court appearance on that carjacking.  His appearance was scheduled at 9:00 a.m.

Quick, guess how he arranged transportation to get to his appearance on the earlier carjacking charge.

If you said, “He became gainfully employed, worked a lot of overtime, and spent some of his pay on a lucky court-appearance tie and city bus fare to get to the courthouse, you have not been paying attention to life in Lori Lightfoot’s Chicago.

He got up early on February 25^th and carjacked another car at 8:00 a.m., to drive it to court at 9:00. (No word on the make and model of that car, but I’m guessing a late 70s Dodge Omni.)  Surprisingly, the cops got a timely report about that crime, and caught Flemming before he could get to court.

Quick, guess what they found in the car with Flemming when they stopped him.

If you said, “A well-worn Bible filled with Edward Flemming’s handwritten exegetical notes,” I don’t think you’re even trying anymore. 

Surprise!  It was a gun. 

Quick, before you can say, “A gun that he bought legally, after passing a background check, and which he was fully licensed to carry concealed?” – get out of here with that.  Of course not.

It was a gun reported stolen in an earlier robbery.

Amazingly, Flemming is actually doing some time for his latest crimes.  Although prosecutors dropped six felony charges as part of a plea deal, he will actually serve around 9 years of a 14-year sentence.

Which reminds me, if gun control advocates were serious about decreasing gun crime, one simple action would go a long way toward that goal: any time a previously convicted person commits another crime with a gun, he automatically serves 10 years (with no sentence reduction possible) just for using the gun, in addition to any other time he gets for the crime itself, and even if he didn’t fire the gun during the crime.

(I would also be open to making that 10-year mandatory sentence 20 or 30 years.)

Since a very small percentage of the population commits a huge percentage of all crimes, getting those frequent fliers off the streets would radically cut the number of gun crimes,1 and prevent untold suffering.

But I’m afraid that many gun control fans are more interested in preventing law abiding citizens from defending themselves than they are in actually stopping gun crime.  Or maybe they just don’t know any better.

There’s certainly a lot of that going around lately. 

Speaking of not knowing any better, how about that Joe Biden?

While I was hanging out with the cousins and having a great time in our free state, our posthumous president finally made an appearance at our porous southern border.  And it went about as well as you’d expect.

First he had a photo op walking alongside a section of border wall – which he has denigrated for the last 4 years, and did everything he could to prevent being even partially built – talking to members of the border patrol – whom he has denigrated for the last 4 years, at least.

Remember that time when he accused the mounted border patrol members of whipping the illegals whom Biden himself had encouraged to break our laws by crossing our border illegally?  Even though the patrol members didn’t have whips, but reins? 

And they weren’t using their reins to whip the illegals?  They were using them as horse-controlling devices?

Which is what they are?

Well Biden is betting that we don’t remember that.

But there is something that we really don’t remember: it’s when Biden apologized to the border patrol members for smearing them that way.

Because that never happened.

Anyway, after Biden managed to walk along the border wall without bonking his empty, liver-spotted head into it (Yay!  Presidential accomplishment!), he was gently guided into a room where he met with some officials with the Salvation Army. 

When the first guy shook his hand, Biden mumbled, “I spent some time with the Secret Service in Poland and in Ukraine.”

To his credit, the guy put on a poker face and managed not to do what he had to be thinking of doing: circling his right ear with his right index finger and saying either, “WTF?” or, “Cuckoo!” 

Instead, he blinked rapidly, nodded several times, and said, “Oh yeah?”  And then he gestured to a guy on his right, guiding Biden toward him. That guy had an expression like they were playing hot potato, and he was about to lose.

At this point, I would gladly trade the POTUS for a potato. 

Or any other vegetable, fruit or legume, really.  No reasonable offer will be refused.

Let me end on a less disturbing note, and share a story that you might not have seen, because it involves soccer.  (Although I have a firm policy of not paying attention to soccer, I’m making an exception for this story.) 

In 2020 Kiersten Hening played on the Virginia Tech women’s soccer team.  When she refused to kneel for a coercive pre-game “unity” ceremony supporting the Black Lives Matter movement, her coach – Charles “Chugger” Adair – benched her. 

By the way, if you’ve heard of a worse nickname that anyone has ever embraced for himself – Adair’s Twitter account is “@CoachChugger” – please post it so that we can all mock that person.   

Hening sued, and Chugger and the Spineless Adminstrators (worst garage band name ever, by the way) laughably argued that political bullying had nothing to do with her benching, which they claimed was the result of her poor play on the court, or rink, or field, or whatever soccer is played on.  (I am not going to waste precious time looking that up.)

Chugger’s case was weakened a bit by the fact that Hening started 18 games (or matches, bouts, or rounds. Not looking it up) out of 19 in 2019, and that she had the most minutes played of any team member in 2020.

This week the school settled with Hening, giving her $100K, but still denying that her benching had anything to do with the fact that she wasn’t keen on bending the knee to a bunch of leftist whitey-hating violence aficionados.

Very classy, Chugger.  Have you ever considered going into politics?  Because I’m sure the Biden administration always has room for one more dishonest hack with terrible priorities and weak character.  

Oh, and before I forget:  as far as I know, Liz Warren didn’t make any newsworthy statements this week. 

But still, she’s as white as Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, and she owes her entire academic and political career to repeatedly lying about being an American Indian.  So today, as always…

#wemustneverstopmockingher

Fetterman/ Edward “Fast Eddie” Flemming 2024!

No, I’m not going to talk about the House speaker debacle.  I’ve watched about 5 minutes of coverage of it, and that’s only because it took me 5 minutes (cumulatively) to scramble and get the remote and change the channel.

I feel about the GOP the way Churchill felt about democracy. He famously said that democracy is the worst form of government… except for all the others. 

And I say that the Republicans are the worst of our two parties… except for the other one. 

And that other one is such a dog’s breakfast of wrong ideas, idiots (both useful and useless), malevolence, avarice and corruption that it is not a viable option for sensible people.  (Dave Rubin has never been more right: you don’t have to be a Republican, but you can’t be a Democrat!)

But that doesn’t mean that I have to watch the 47 ballots’ worth of clown show going on right now in DC.  Someone please text me when we have a new speaker.

Until then, I came here to mock lefties and criminals and eat advent calendar chocolates. 

And I’m all out of advent calendar chocolates. 

Have you noticed how outraged the Dems and MSM are about newly elected Republican George Santos?

Don’t get me wrong: the guy sounds like a nut, and I would never defend the kind of lying he apparently did while running for a House seat in New York.  (Is it possible that New Yorkers have been hip-deep in lying politicians for so long that they’re inured to liars?)

But it’s a little rich to hear nationally elected Democrats pretending to be outraged by Santos’ behavior, considering the Cadaver in Chief they’ve got in the White House.

Let’s review their (apparently accurate) charges against Santos:

He claimed to have a religion that he doesn’t.  (He said he was Jewish.) 

By the way, Joe Biden claims to be a Catholic, despite flouting that church’s teaching on any number of subjects, not least the funding of Planned Parenthood abortuaries with pallets of taxpayer cash.  (And if there were a commandment involving not sniffing the hair of random young girls, he would have turned into a pillar of salt – topped with a set of fake choppers and unconvincing hair plugs – a long time ago.)  

Santos claimed to have worked at jobs that he didn’t (at Citigroup and Goldman Sachs).  

By the way, Joe Biden claimed to have been a truck driver, and a college football player, and for all I know an astronaut, and a matador.  Not to mention the Indian brave who won Lizzie “Little Feather” Warren’s heart when they met at a Ghost Dance ritual in Oglala Sioux territory in the fall of 1871.  (#wemustneverstopmockingher)

Santos claimed to have voted against the omnibus spending disaster when he wasn’t even in congress.       

By the way, Biden claimed to have passed student debt forgiveness legislation (while actually just signing a blatantly unconstitutional executive order to that effect), saying, “I just signed a law.  It’s passed.  It got it passed by a vote or two.”

Santos claimed to have an impressive academic record that he didn’t.

By the way, if you haven’t seen the infamous 1987 Joe Biden clip attacking a reporter who asked about his academic record, treat yourself to 53 seconds of top-shelf, weapons-grade mendacity. 

In that tirade, Joe Biden said the following things, which I swear I am not making up: “I think I probably have a much higher IQ than you do.  I went to law school on a full academic scholarship, the only one in my class to have a full academic scholarship…. I ended up in the top half of my class.  I won the international moot court competition.  I was the outstanding student in the political science department.  I graduated with 3 degrees from undergraduate school.”

Other than his IQ claim (the reporter might really have had an IQ lower than 9), every word of that was a lie (including, as the famous line goes “and” and “the”). 

And his later forced retractions were vintage Biden.  When the press actually looked into his claims (remember those days? Sigh.), it turned out that he had had only a half scholarship in law school, and that was based on need rather than on merit.  His feeble response was that “I don’t recall paying any money to go to law school.”  Ooookay. 

He actually graduated 76^th in a class of 85. (I’ve got a request in to Christopher Silber to confirm this, but I’m pretty sure that 76th out of 85 is not in the top half.)

When confronted with his claim to earn 3 undergrad degrees, he “clarified” that by claiming that he was a double major in history and poli sci, stating, “I said ‘three’ and I should have said ‘two.’”  Then the paper pointed out that he didn’t earn two degrees, but only one.

That’s right.  He lied about the lie he told earlier.   And remember, this happened 35 years ago, long before Biden tragically died after a long, losing battle with dementia.   

And here’s a few more facts to consider:

Santos never claimed to vanquish the Dread Corn Pop (previous record 32-0, with 29 wins by KO) in a cage match to the death.

Santos never had to quit two – not one, but two! – presidential campaigns in disgrace when he was caught plagiarizing.

Santos never falsely claimed to have marched with civil rights leaders in the south.

Santos never claimed to have a “juicy booty.”  (Ok, that was just a cheap though well-deserved shot at AOC.)

Santos never falsely claimed to have been jailed with Nelson Mandela.

Ugh.  If the Dems going after Santos had any self-awareness, they’d award him the title of “Honorary Democrat,” and give him a key to the city of Washington, DC and a parade.  (Hunter could supply the hookers and meth for the after-party.)

Speaking of bad guys getting what they deserve, let’s look at a feel-good crime story involving two arsonists in Bakersfield CA.  They walked up to a business with a can of gasoline each, and poured the liquid all over the front and one side of the building and parking lot. 

Then one moron – because he apparently doesn’t understand how either fire or gasoline works – bent down to light the puddle of gasoline that he was partly standing in.  He got caught in the fireball, and limped off with his pants on fire.  (Thus becoming an honorary Democrat.) 

Meanwhile, the fire followed the puddled gasoline up toward the building and then back down the driveway toward the second dimwit, who got startled by the puddle of flame rapidly approaching him.  Having just graduated from Imbecile Academy (76^th of 85 in his class!), he flailed and then slipped and fell in the gasoline that was just igniting, and ran off with his jacket on fire. 

That story is on RedState, and if you watch the video, I recommend the shot from camera 2.  Also, if you have any Three Stooges sound effects handy – as one should – I recommend overdubbing Curly’s “whoop whoop whoop” cry over the hilarious footage.

As a bonus, that article also provides links to 7 other recent entertaining stories about criminals, including the one I wrote about in a previous column featuring a motorcycle thief who had a gasoline container under the back of his jacket when the cops caught him. 

When he fled on foot, one cop hit him in the back with a taser, and the crook turned into Johnny Human Torch. 

There’s also one in which three thugs tried to rob a female cashier at a pizza place, with her 14-year-old son present.  When one thug started strangling her over the counter, her kid grabbed the pistol there and shot him in the face.  (Yes!)

In Louisville, Kentucky a bonehead tried to hold up a fast-food chicken place with a gun.  The good news: there were only two customers in the place, a married couple on a date night. 

The bad news: they were a married couple of cops, both carrying their service pistols.  The brave criminal dropped his gun and ran like a vegan French eco-protestor, and was caught a block away.

But my favorite was the one in which CA cops cornered a fleeing felon in his pickup after a long chase.  They shot out his side window with rubber pellets and then… enter the K-9!   

The 11-second video is worth watching several dozen times. The dog comes flying in from offscreen left like he was shot out of cannon.  He smashes headfirst through the already broken window and begins chomping on the felon’s neck and shoulder area, while his rear end is framed in the window.

His tail never stops wagging. 

The criminal flails and hollers something which I couldn’t make out, though I like to think it was, “AIIEEE, I regret all of my decisions!”

Thus answering the age-old question, “Who’s a good boy?”

NOT THE FELON!

Now if only we could let that pooch loose in the House of Representatives…

Fetterman/ George “Brandon” Santos 2024!

Happy New Year, everyone!

In keeping with our positive outlook, I’d like to focus my first column of this year on celebrating some of the best developments of 2022.

Sure, it was in many ways a troubling year, as every year under such a misguided and incompetent administration as the late Joe Biden’s is bound to be.  The “red trickle” in November was severely disappointing, and our exploding deficit and the ongoing flood of illegals into our country — to name the three worst events in our public life in 2022 — promise many waves of deleterious consequences in the future. 

But our country and our people are still great, and many are fighting the good fight.  I trust that many Americans will be following the advice given in the Latin motto of the Simpson family crest – which I have written about before, and swear I am not making up: “Nil Desperandum.”  (Never Despair.)

So let’s take a quick look back at the good things that happened in our national life last year. And because, as CO has taught us, everything is better if put into a list, here are my Top 5 Positive Developments of 2022:

1. Elon Musk buying Twitter is huge, and looks to be part of an ongoing and important change to our public debate.  

Of course the MSM is doing their best to smear their erstwhile hero Elon, and to under-cover and distort the story.  But they stand revealed as deeply dishonest partisan hacks and censors, and while we few (we happy few!) have always known that they were collaborating with the swamp, the evidence is now revealed.

Yes, the average low-engagement (often low-information) voter still is not getting most of the details from the MSM.  But what had been dismissed as shadowy conspiracy theories is now being confirmed by a ton of scandalous, easy-to-understand facts and info – from the sleaze and corruption implicating the Big Guy on Hunter’s laptop, to the malfeasance and lying of the FBI and big tech – that conservatives will be able to use in future investigations, and in 2024 campaign debates.   

And Elon has wisely given the Twitter files to long-time liberal journalists like Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss.  Their progressive pedigrees make the MSM attempts to smear their digging and reporting as “conservative propaganda” even more laughably unbelievable.  

2. The excesses of the Left in 2022 drove many high-profile liberals – some of whom still consider themselves liberal, or at the very least not conservative – to break ranks and publicly argue against leftist politicians and policies.   The aforementioned Elon Musk, Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss are good examples, but there are many others.

RFK Jr. – still a committed liberal, and wrong about many things – has been hammering Dems about their misguided and destructive covid policies.  Joe Rogan has stood up to censorship and woke attempts to cancel him, and hosts debates from people of various political persuasions.  Tulsi Gabbard has shown how a non-conservative can still roast the national Democrats for their worst behavior.

Two of my favorite podcasters are Adam Carolla and Dave Rubin, both of whom have gained a huge fan base while breaking with and criticizing leftist orthodoxy.  Carolla is an idiosyncratic amalgam of low-brow and vulgar with sneakily intelligent, and he aims much of his most hilariously righteous outrage at the socialists who have been ruining his home state of California.

Rubin has gone from a life-long leftist and panel member on The Young Turks (!) to an able and engaging conservative polemicist.  He may have come up with the most apt epigram to describe our current situation — post-Obama and Trump, and mid-Biden – and to appeal to the mostly independent or a-political middle that decides most elections now: “You don’t have to be a Republican, but you can’t be a Democrat.”

3. The GOP takes over the House.

This one comes with many caveats, but even as feckless as many in the GOP are, and even if they’re only half as conservative as they pretend to be, they are light-years better than extremist dopes like Schiff, Tlaib, Omar, AOC, Maxine Waters, et. al.   The GOP will now control committees and investigations, with the power to stop the worst of the Dem abuses, and to call attention to them in ways that will be harder for the MSM to cover up.

Though they only have a slim house majority, nationwide GOP candidates received 5.5 million more votes than Dems.  (I know: we needed to spread those extra votes over many more tight races than we did.)  That number is one more reason for hope that the GOP can take the Senate and the White House in 2024.

Even though the Dems somehow slipped the noose in 2022, they’ve only got a one-seat Senate advantage, and they have to defend a lot more Senate seats in ‘24, including ones in red states.  And their presidential candidate prospects are bleak: Joey Gaffes has been doing everything but visibly decomposing in public for the last two years.  And it’s not like he’s getting any younger, or more sentient.

If Biden doesn’t run, though, Que Mala Harris is next in line, and everybody knows that she is a cackling human toothache in a pantsuit.  But since the entire Democrat party has weaponized the race and gender cards for the last 30 years, Que Mala can cause a huge, divisive, commie-on-commie fight if she tries to get the nod, and is denied.

If sanity prevails and those two are dumped, we’re looking at the same Murderer’s Row of Terribleness that graced the last several Dem primaries:

Nonagenarian Bernie Sanders, making Biden look young and vibrant by comparison; race-hustling goofball Spartacus Booker; flavorless lamp-thrower Amy Klobuchar.  Mayor Pete, who looks worse with each passing transportation disaster that he sits out to take “paternity leave,” recovering from the physical stress of not having a baby.

And we can’t forget Lizzie “Little Feather” Warren, who gets whiter and more Karen-y with each passing hour.  (#wemustneverstopmockingher) 

The only new player currently on the horizon is that smarmy, empty haircut of a Ken Doll, Gavin Newsom, fresh from ravaging the late, great Golden State.

Yes, the recent mid-term still gives me pause.  Because if people can vote for candidates like Fetterman, Warnock, Hochul and Whitmer, they could also vote for one of the Dem horribles listed above.

But I still believe that after two more years of Biden’s inflation, crime, border lawlessness, etc., and if we put up a reasonable, conservative candidate (I’m hoping for DeSantis), we should win.

4.  The Dobbs and 2^nd Amendment Supreme Court decisions in the summer were great.

I wrote about both rulings in June and July (you can find those columns – they were two of my favorites – at Martinsimpsonwriting.com), so I’ll only say a few things about them now:

• We need to thank Trump for giving us the judges that gave us those rulings.
• The quality of writing and thinking from the originalist/conservative judges starkly contrasts with the convoluted, emotional, point-missing of the “living constitution” leftist judges.
• I’d never read complete SC rulings before, and it was a surprisingly pleasurable learning experience.

I know that many conservatives have pointed to the Dobbs ruling as a partial reason that the Red Wave never materialized.  I’m not sure that it played any decisive role, but even if it did, I’d make that trade any day. 

The original Roe decision was incoherently reasoned and legally unfounded, as even most principled liberal lawyers admit today.  The original judges pretended to discover a right that was clearly not in the constitution, and thus to take the serious abortion debate away from the citizens of the 50 states, and cram down a decision that just so happened to coincide with their own political beliefs.

The Dobbs ruling, in Alito’s clear and forceful opinion, did not dictate abortion policy; it simply returned it to the states, where it had been for the first 200 years of our nation’s history, and where it will now be debated and decided by the American people.

Naturally, the activist left either misunderstood that, or willfully lied about it, as I mentioned by pointing out a meme that came out in the wake of the ruling:

Screaming Dem protestor: Unelected judges should NOT DICTATE ABORTION POLICY!!

SCOTUS: That’s literally what we just said.  

5. On a smaller but still satisfying note, we can be thankful that many annoying leftists were repudiated and sent packing in 2022.

Media train-wrecks Chris Cuomo and Brian Stelter were fired, and Don Lemon was demoted to an even less-watched CNN program.  (I know: how is that possible?)  Hyper-expensive CNN+ lasted about as long as the fidelity portion of Bill Clinton’s wedding vows. 

The top brass of lying censors at Twitter got the boot when Elon came marching in.

Obnoxious RINOs Liz Cheney and Cryin’ Adam Kinzinger got stomped, and so did Beta O’Rourke and Stacy Abrams.  Again!

Our old friend Michael Avenatti got an additional long prison sentence, and Sam Bankman-Fried will soon be joining him there. 

If you have other events on your Top 5, please share them in your comments, and again, Happy New Year!

Fetterman/ “Little Feather” Warren, 2024!

After a relaxing Christmas at home, I took a quick trip up to Tennessee with my wife and youngest daughter (and Wonder Dog, of course), to see my mom, sis and bro-in-law.  After I got back home, I read CO’s story of his car trip back from Memphis after the recent Southwest unpleasantness, and realized that we’d been in the same state together. 

I had my own small encounter with a weather-related traffic difficulty.  On the way north on Monday, Waze alerted us to a stoppage on the interstate just north of us, and sent us on a 4 mile detour on a two-lane country road.

Unfortunately, Waze apparently didn’t know that a light snow had been falling there, and some ice had formed on the little road we were on.  After a mile of driving through a very pretty snowy landscape, we turned a corner and found ourselves near the top of a fairly large hill, with two pick-ups stopped just ahead of us.

On either side of the road, two trucks and a SUV had slid off into a ditch.  But there was no turning back, so we spent the next 15 minutes creeping very slowly down that hill.  The ground was mostly level after that, and we were soon back on the interstate, and motoring along at 15 miles an hour. 

We had some good family time in TN, and the drive home was uneventful.  Regrettably, I didn’t stop at a Waffle House during the trip, like CO and the COD did.

But in my defense, I have eaten at the WH many times in my life, having not lived the kind of sheltered and deprived existence that CO did, until a loving God sent a storm that stranded him in Memphis, then provided him with an underpowered rental car and guided his path to the Casa de Waffle. 

He truly does work in mysterious ways.

Amid the holiday festivities, I intermittently checked on the news.  As soon as I heard of the infuriating and feckless GOP collapse on the $1.7 trillion omnibus package, I resolved to try to avoid any other political news until the new year.

I read some stories about the huge winter storm in Buffalo, which brought out the best and worst in people.  Many neighbors, friends and first responders rescued people trapped in their homes or cars.  But many others took advantage of the storm by looting.

Thankfully, in the tradition of the rooftop Koreans in LA, and Kyle Rittenhouse, and the FL sheriffs who encourage shooting looters, a few store owners sent the looters fleeing with some well-timed gunfire.  I found a short video, but couldn’t tell whether anyone had been hit or not.

For one brief moment I tried to give the thieves the benefit of the doubt.   Maybe their houses were out of power and they were hungry, so they felt driven to break into a grocery store and—

Oh wait.  The store they broke into was a weave store.  They were stealing weaves from a weave store, in a blizzard.

So there is only one thing to say to those store owners.

Aim small, miss small.    

That story reminds me of a near-constant in many crime stories: American criminals almost never steal necessities, out of real need.  They’re not stealing food, or bottled water, or formula for their children.

They’re stealing weaves, or Play Stations, or lottery tickets and cigarettes from convenience stores.  They’re grabbing high-end clothing and electronics and big screen tvs from big box stores.  They’re cutting catalytic converters out of cars. 

Or they’re Sam Bankman-Freid, stealing millions to donate to corrupt Democrats in an election year. 

Too often, our society is providing encouragement to criminals, and excusing or even praising their crimes. 

Poor people are being told that it’s only fair that they take from those who have more than they do.  Minorities are told that they deserve do-it-yourself reparations because of what long-dead people with roughly their same skin coloration suffered in the 19^th century.  

Young ignorami are told that their country is evil, and “peaceful protests” that injure thousands and cause billions in damage are justified attempts to bring about “social justice.”

One example is Francis “Frankie” Carroll, a 22-year-old Antifa terrorist who was arrested earlier this month in an “autonomous zone” that he and his dimwit comrades established near Atlanta.  They were protesting the future Atlanta Public Safety Training Center. 

After many months of occupying the area, building makeshift treehouses and putting up tents and harassing the locals, the violent lefty dopes attacked cops with rocks and bottles.  After arresting them, the cops cleaned up the area and found gasoline, road flares and explosive devices. 

Young Frankie and four of his co-religionists were arrested with a raft of charges, including criminal trespass, aggravated assault, felony obstruction and domestic terrorism. 

You can probably guess his story: raised in poverty, broken home, criminal dad, junkie single mom, terrible schools, forced into gangs.

Nope.  He grew up near Kennebunkport Maine, in a mansion with his two sisters, his mom, and his millionaire physician dad.  He was in the honor roll throughout school, and spent time sailing on his folks’ small yacht.   (And you know how stressful yachting can be, what with needing to learn which side is port and which is starboard, and what a mizzen is, and remembering to re-apply sunscreen.)

He’s as spoiled as a Kennedy, and as white as Elizabeth Warren.  (#wemustneverstopmockingher)

Annnndddd… we’re back to politics. 

(Cue my eerily accurate Pacino impression: “Just when I think I’m out, they pull me back in.”)

Although there were a lot of high points this year, and the GOP will be taking over the House, the Dems escaped what should have been a severe beating on 11/8, and we’ve got to survive another two years of Biden’s metaphysically terrible administration. 

I’m looking forward to ringing in a new year and keeping politics in its proper place, and I hope you all are as well.   In my next column I’m going to lay out some hopes for 2023, and I’d like to hear some of yours, too.    

Fetterman/ Spoiled Frankie Carroll, 2024!