So I was reading the online site Space.com today – as one normally does most Tuesdays – and I came across an intriguing article titled, “A super-Earth beyond Mars would have made Earth nearly uninhabitable.” The article discussed the implications of recently published research by my daughter, whom the article referred to as a “planetary scientist.”
She’s not technically a “planetary scientist” yet – she graduates in a few weeks with two degrees, in Planetary Science, and Astronomy and Astrophysics, and is applying to start a PhD program in the fall – but she’s the first author on a journal article already.
Also, my older daughter Katie is fully recovered from her surgery last month, and back at work saving lives as a pediatric nurse. (Thanks again for all your prayers and good wishes.) And Cassie the Wonder Dog is lying on the floor beside my desk as I write this, radiating canine faithfulness.
Thus ends the “Bragging Dad” section of the column.
As we all prepare for another Thanksgiving, this one seems especially sweet to me. Everywhere I look, I see evidence that God exists, and He loves us.
And I’m not just talking about my smoke-show wife, smarty-pants daughters and the Gators upsetting LSU and Ole Miss in recent weeks.
I’m talking about bourbon, and ice cream, and scotch, and literature, and music, and beer, and modern anesthetics. (I’ve getting a root canal next week, and thanks to numbing shots and sweet, sweet oxycodone, I’m not worried about it at all.) I’m talking about football, both college and pro. (Did I mention that the Gators are bowl eligible, despite having the toughest schedule in the country this year?) (Did I mention the Chicago Bears? Okay, I did not. But wait ‘til next year!)
I’m talking about living in the greatest country in the world, based on a Judeo-Christian moral foundation that safeguards our rights. I can worship freely, and speak my mind, and defend myself and my family against violent d-bags – using my constitutionally protected handguns and shotguns.
I’m talking about a nation which has allowed human flourishing in so many areas, including amazing technological advances. From air conditioning (I don’t know how people settled Florida without it… or why!) to airplanes to cars to computers, we now have access to the greatest products of human creativity.
I’m talking about video and audio recordings of amazing music – not just classical, bluegrass, country, pop and rock, but eccentric, riveting styles from around the world, including Gregorian chants, Mongolian throat singing (check out the Hu Band’s bizarrely hypnotic “Wolf Totem”), and a Georgian Orthodox priest and a young girl singing The Lord’s Prayer in Aramaic, which I can’t watch without choking up.
We can read great writing – from Dante, Milton and Shakespeare to Hemingway, Chandler, Frost and C.S. Lewis – all at our fingertips. We can access great drama and comedy, and documentaries and movies on any subject, whenever we want. I can watch Victor Davis Hanson, Ben Shapiro, Thomas Sowell, Milton Friedman and Adam Carolla whenever I’m in the mood.
And the computer allows us to “meet” people and form communities in ways never before possible. Communities like our very own CO nation, which has been for me a source of information, entertainment and even joy, as I hope it has been for you. We’ve celebrated cultural and political good news together – and commiserated through bad news – over the last eight years.
And as this year moves toward its end, we’ve got so much more to celebrate. This election has renewed and fed our badly dented optimism about the country’s near future, and filled us with gratitude for the opportunities in front of us, and relief over the bullets we dodged on November 6th.
It’s also given us more than a little bit of invigorating schadenfreude at the much-deserved dose of karmic whoop-ass and whirlwind-reaping received by some people who needed their ears boxed and their course corrected. As do we all, from time to time.
This Thanksgiving and Christmas will be extra happy, because we know that in January our nation will begin to undo the damage done over the last decade and more, and reorient ourselves to what has made our country great. I am looking forward to this inauguration more than any other in my lifetime.
On Monday I wrote about how I’d love to see Trump troll the left by being sworn in on a copy of Project 2025. And because I am basically a child trapped in a man’s body, that started me fantasizing about the inaugural address I’d like to see Trump deliver.
Am I saying that my version ranks up there with Lincoln’s second inaugural, and should therefore be carved on the walls of the future Trump Memorial in DC?
To quote a failed presidential candidate whose name escapes me, “I’m saying we should have that conversation.”
So as my Thanksgiving gift to you, here’s the speech that I’d load into Trump’s teleprompter on January 20th:
“First let me thank the citizens in the battleground states, which I swept in an unprecedented way. Never been done before! Nobody has ever seen anything like it. Certainly not the pollsters, who are very stupid people, let’s admit it.
The “Blue Wall,” they called it! They were right about it being a wall, but they got the color wrong. They got it wrong! Because we built a fantastic Red Wall. We won the popular vote, we built a red wall, and soon we’ll build a big, beautiful border wall! You’re all going to love it, believe me.
I’d also like to thank my beautiful wife Melania. She’s gorgeous, isn’t she? She came here the right way – LEGALLY! – and she gave me my gigantic, genetically superior son, Barron.
And my other children too, from my other wives, each one younger and more beautiful than the last. People are always asking me, “Sir, how did all of your children turn out so great? They’re all so successful, not a loser in the bunch. None of them took bags of illegal cash from corrupt countries, or recorded themselves snorting meth with hookers, like some other presidential offspring we could mention.”
But I say, “No! You shouldn’t talk about other people that way, even if they did leave cocaine lying all over the White House.” Especially not today, which is a fantastic day. Maybe the best day ever, since it marks our turning away from the horrible failures of my low-IQ predecessors, and toward the amazing dawn of making America great again!
I’d like to begin my second term with a gesture of bipartisanship, by agreeing to two of the Democrats’ main proposals over the last several years. Therefore, I am going to grant their frequently and passionately repeated requests to get rid of the filibuster in the Senate, starting now. I will begin immediately pushing all of my policies through, on all fronts, with at least 50 votes in the Senate, using JD Vance’s tie-breaking vote whenever needed.”
“Secondly, I hereby agree to an 18-year maximum tenure on the Supreme Court. Sadly, that means that Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and John Roberts will be forced to retire this year. I will immediately nominate strict constructionist/originalists to replace each of them, and ram them through the Senate confirmation process. It also means that Justices Sotomayor and Kagan will be forcibly retired during 2027 and 2028 respectively, and I will appoint their replacements as well. Doing so will ensure that when I leave office, we will have a solid court with an 8-1 conservative majority, and for most of the next 15 years, 7 of those will be my appointees.
During his second term, JD Vance will appoint replacements for Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Coney-Barrett. Then Ivanka – the first female president – will appoint Ketanji Brown-Jackson’s replacement in 2040. Then, of course, Barron will succeed Ivanka after his election when he turns 35 years old, in 2041.
Now if you will all join me in the White House, we’ll be enjoying a state dinner catered by McDonalds. My Democrat friends can pile into the back of the line of Trump garbage trucks parked on Pennsylvania Avenue for the drive to dinner.
God bless you, and God bless America!”
Have a safe and Happy Thanksgiving, CO Nation!
Martin Simpson 
Gre
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