Month: June 2025

They Won’t Accept Success: Tucker and the Left’s Reaction to Taking Out Iran’s Nukes (posted 6/27/25)

It’s been interesting to watch the reactions to Trump’s bombing of Iran, especially since there are very few things that we agree on as a nation.  Our recent election results have all been within a handful of points of 50/50, and the job approval ceiling for the last several presidents appears to be right around 50%.

In that context, you’d think the 12 Day War in Iran – assuming that the fighting is now over –would seem to be an extreme outlier, since there has rarely been such a one-sided modern battle. 

Israel’s all-time record victory in the Six-Day War in 1967 will likely never be topped.  (One of my all-time favorite t-shirts is a white one with the blue Star of David on it, and the words, “Six Days, B*tch.”)  And even the first Gulf War took a little over a month. 

So the speed of this victory, along with the moral lopsidedness of the combatants – no one but Iran’s ruling theocratic dictatorship and their terrorist clients could side with them – is also unusual in most conflicts among states.  You would have to be a totally deranged lunatic to side with the mullahs over Israel and us.  (Ladies and gentlemen, I give you… Keith Olbermann.)

I wrote in a previous column about Israel’s stunning successes against Iran before this war, and then during the lightning-strikes and coordinated strategic destruction of military targets, along with decapitating the cream of the Iranian military commanders and nuclear scientists.  It’s amazing to think about how much they’ve accomplished in a year!

They decimated Hezbollah with the brilliant pager plot, along with targeted strikes on all of their top leaders, and did the same to Hamas with their relentless attacks on the terror forces of October 7th.  They contributed to the weakening of the Assad regime in Syria by eliminating much of their navy and air force, and when Assad fled, Israel wisely flew strikes that took out most of their remaining ships, planes, missiles and chemical weapons, so they wouldn’t fall into the hands of Assad’s successors.

They also took out much of Iran’s air force over the last year, and in the early hours of their attacks this month, they took out the rest, along with the leaders who would have organized a military response and possible counter strikes.  Their successes meant that our bombing run against Iran’s nuke sites posed fewer risks than it otherwise would have.

All of this put the Democrats in a very tough position, partly because too many elite Dems and their activist base really dislike America, and partly because successes of one party always make for bad politics for their competitors.  I mean, if Biden’s program – allowing millions of illegals into the country, spending like a meth addict with a trust fund, forcing dudes into girls’ sports and lockerrooms, imposing draconian covid mandates and lockdowns on healthy people – had succeeded, our election prospects last year would have been dismal.

Having said all that, it was so entertaining to watch all of the hysterical reactions from Never Trumpers and the left during the lead up to our bombing.  Particular favorites in a crowded field were the articles and speeches of David Frum and Chuck-you Schumer, which aged like milk left out in the summer sun.      

Frum published an article in the Atlantic (motto: Wrong About Everything Since 1857) entitled, “What Iran Knows About Trump: The Mullahs of Iran Join the Bet that Trump Always Chickens Out.”  I’m going to see if I can get the Atlantic to publish my companion piece to Frum’s.  I’m calling it, “What David Frum Knows About Trump… Could Fit in a Thimble.”  Frum also tweeted that, “’Two Weeks’ is what Trump says when he’s backing away from a commitment he did not mean.”

What makes those even funnier?  They both appeared on June 21st, the very day that Trump was rocking the Iranian Casbah (sing it with me, “Khameni don’t like it…”) instead of chickening out, as Frum-py knew he would. 

Schumer got in earlier, but just as stupidly.  He put out a video a few weeks ago warning that Trump was going to fold to the mullahs, and make a secret deal.   “If Taco Trump is already folding, the American public should know about it,” he croaked.   

He sneered that Trump was “gonna sound tough in public and then negotiate a side deal that lets Iran get away with everything.”  And give him credit, because he was half right:  Trump did sound tough in public. 

But then he dropped the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or MOP.   

And before you can ask, I looked it up, and that is NOT gay slang, no matter how much it sounds like it.  (Still, the next time my wife asks me to get the mop, I’m going to chuckle and give her my Grouch Marx eyebrow wiggle, even though she won’t get it.) (I mean the comedic reference, not the…  Ahem.  Perhaps I’ve said too much.)

By the way, I assume that everyone has noticed Schumer’s obvious physical decline.  He was briefly taken to the hospital a day ago for a breathing scare, but he was losing it long before that.  He’s getting more and more hunched-over every time I see him; right now he’s got the posture of a jumbo shrimp, or possibly the letter “c,” and that gives him a creepy Nosferatu-ian vibe when he crouches over a podium and hollers at us while glaring from over the top of his glasses.

Do any politicians ever just retire anymore? 

Unfortunately, Tucker Carlson has continued his precipitous slide from being a smart and insightful guy into either a dumb hack, or a dishonest one.  Shortly before Trump gave the mullahs the MOP (stop snickering), Tucker was on Steve Bannon’s podcast raving about the apocalyptic consequences if Trump did anything to Iran.

He said it would signal “the end of the American Empire” and of Trump’s presidency, and predicted that we’d lose thousands of soldiers in another Iraq situation.  And he mocked the idea that the argument isn’t between those who want to use quick strikes to prevent Iran from getting nukes, and those who want to rely on drawn-out negotiations (which, spoiler alert have been tried and failed miserably for the last several decades). 

Nope.  For Tucker, “The real divide is between those who casually encourage violence and those who seek to prevent it – between warmongers and peacemakers.”  That sounds like something that could have been written by Bernie Sanders, AOC, or the ghost of Howard Zinn. 

Speaking of AOC (she of the juicy booty, according to her), she and half the Democrats in Congress ran to microphones or X and immediately started calling for the impeachment of Trump (again!) and decrying his horrific, unconstitutional act of bombing without getting congress’ permission first. 

Apparently no one has told them that every president since HW Bush has done that, or that Obama dropped thousands of bombs without congress’ permission in just the last several months of his reign of terro—I mean, administration.

But I didn’t need to study for years about geopolitics to support the bombing of Iran’s nuke sites.  Because I informed myself by reading an article on Twitchy about 20 actual laws in Iran, and that was enough. 

A small sampling of illegal activities in Iran: apostasy (leaving Islam), blasphemy, homosexuality and adultery can all get you the death penalty.  You can’t criticize the chief Weird Beard, or drink alcohol, or dissent online.  Women can’t sing or dance in public or go to stadiums, and they have to wear pup tents or beekeeper outfits. 

You can get up to 74 lashes for holding hands or kissing in public, and any same-sex relationships – even if, and I am quoting, they are “non-penetrative” – will get you “lashes, prison or worse.”  (I’m no relationship-ologist, but if your sexual relationships are non-penetrative, I’m pretty sure you’re doing something wrong.) (But hey, you do you.)

However, I didn’t even need to read about any of those laws, because they had me at # 19:  Dog ownership is banned, because dogs are “unclean.”   (Cassie the Wonder Dog is beside my desk as I write this, so I’m typing very quietly.)  Which is truly offensive, not to mention ridiculous.

I’ve seen those mullahs’ lice-y looking beards, and I’ve read about their goat brides – not to mention the goat chlamydia outbreaks that routinely sweep through the Iranian leadership – so I don’t think they should be throwing any stones about cleanliness from inside their glass mosques.    

Am I saying that the Iranians deserved a devastating bombing campaign because of the way they treat dogs?

I’m saying we should have that conversation.

And I’m also saying yes.    

Hamas delenda est

Greta’s Great Adventure (posted 6/25/25)

This story is a couple of weeks old – which feels like years, in this media environment – but it contains too much hilarity and valuable lessons to not comment on it before it disappears from our memory completely.

This spring, an American organization called the Gaza Humanitarian Fund (GHF) was formed, and it soon got the backing of the Trump administration and the Israeli government to start trucking food into Gaza and distributing it to the Palestinians.  Before then, the food distribution had been handled primarily by the UN, and through its usual honesty and competence…most of that food ended up in the hands of Hamas thugs, who then sold it at inflated prices to the Gazans.

The GHF quickly became much more successful, getting the food to the people it was intended for, while cutting out the Hamas creeps who had been preying on them.  Hamas’s response had the maximum Hamas-ness: they started beating and shooting people to keep them from getting the food, especially when the people had started to openly applaud and say, “Thank you, America.”

The MSM jumped right on the story, reporting that the scenes of grateful Gazans were AI deep fakes, and that the IDF had been shooting, and causing the recipients to panic and trample each other.  Because of course they did. 

When the AI story and the smears of the IDF were debunked, the MSM quickly melted away and started lying elsewhere.  Because: ditto.

Anyway, GHF’s performance demonstrated what a legitimate charitable food distribution plan looks like. 

Meanwhile, a boat was sailing from Sicily (and where were the mafia pirates when you needed them?) toward Gaza on a mission to provide an instructive counter-example of what a fraudulent, virtue-signaling PR circle jerk looks like.  And boy, did it!

The most prominent celebrity passenger on The Mental Minnow was Greta Thunberg, of “The climate will kill us all!” fame.   She’s known by many names: The Doom Pixie.  Sweden’s Shame.  Lil’ Miss “How Dare You!”  But she wanted the world to know that she’s moved on to another noble cause: Jew hating.

Greta and the other merry moronic mariners made videos to document their brave journey to, as she put it, “attempt to break the siege and open up the humanitarian corridor by delivering aid like food and medical supplies.”  She waxed eloquent about the “systematic starvation of 2 million people” and “a live-streamed genocide.” 

Of course, that Israeli genocide does not exist anywhere outside of her unnervingly square head.  But the Self-important Scandinavian was not going to be deterred by little things like facts and reality.  

“Hey Martin,” you are probably saying, “did she record those videos while dressed in the traditional garments of her people, i.e. the Sverigedräkten, or Swedish national dress?”

Yes, and no.  (And by the way, nice umlaut you’ve got there.)  She did wear the traditional garment of her people, but her real people aren’t the Swedes, but the anti-Semites.  And their traditional garment is the terrorist tablecloth, i.e. the keffiyeh. 

And yes, she was all keffiyeh-ed up! 

Naturally, the Israelis intercepted the boat, which gave the maritime martyrs the chance to preen and posture.  Greta recorded a video saying that she was being kidnapped, and appealing to the government of Sweden to use diplomatic pressure to get her released, so that she could complete her mission of taking what turned out to be a small cooler of assorted sandwiches and unpronounceable Swedish snacks to the Gazans. 

The Swedes, not usually noted for their sense of humor, managed to have a perfect, deadpan reaction.  As the Mail Online put it, “Sweden has rejected Greta’s plea for help.”  The Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Maria Malmer Stenergard (she sounds hot, but strict) said, “A great responsibility rests on those who choose to travel contrary to the advice given to a place.” 

Then she pursed her lips and gave a curt nod – which my Norwegian wife informs me is the Scandinavian equivalent of an Italian guy spitting on the ground and giving you both middle fingers – and walked back into Umlaut Hall, or whatever the Swedes call their White House.  

The Jews, on the other hand, are quite famous for their sense of humor.  (Which you would know if you’ve ever seen the Three Stooges, Albert Brooks, Jerry Seinfeld, or Bernie Sanders.)  And they gave Greta the business in their press release, which I am not making up:

“The ‘selfie yacht’ is safely making its way to the shores of Israel.  The passengers…were provided with sandwiches and water, and are expected to return to their home countries.  The tiny amount of aid that wasn’t consumed by the ‘celebrities’ will be transferred to Gaza through real humanitarian channels.” 

Perfect!  But after that squirt of seltzer in the eyes and pie in the face, the Israelis also caught Greta’s Groupies with a little Schindler’s List surprise, taking her and her companions into a room where they began to screen the horrific film of the October 7th massacre.  According to Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz – and I couldn’t make that name up if I tried – “when they saw what [the film] was about, they refused to continue watching.” 

Because of course they did. 

And within 24 hours, Israel deported the whole rotten lot of them. 

Many people cheered Greta’s failure, but not me.  Because I think she got what she wanted, which was to cosplay as a brave, compassionate do-gooder whose noble mission was thwarted by the dastardly Jews. 

I wish that the Israelis had wrong-footed her by waving her through at the border into the hands of Hamas.  With the help of my conical purple wizard hat, I know exactly how that would have gone:

IDF guy:  Here you go, you morally superior Europeans.  Welcome to Gaza.

Greta (nervously): W-w-what?  Aren’t you going to arrest me, to stop me from bringing aid and sustenance to my Muslim fellow-sufferers under the Zionist jackboot?

IDF guy:  No, no.  You can go right on in.  You see those angry-looking men standing with their arms crossed and sneering?  Those are your Hamas “handlers.”

Greta:  Were those verbal quotation marks around “handlers?”  What do you mean by “handlers?”

IDF: Oh nothing.  Just that they’re going to handle you.

Hamasnik 1 (H1):  Who is that infidel harlot?  She looks familiar.

Hamasnik 2 (H2): I’ve never seen her before.  She has a very square head.

H1: What?

H2: Her head is strange.  Very distinctive shape.  If I had ever seen her before, I would remember that head.

Achmed (just joining them):  What is going on? 

H1: The Jews are letting those infidels come in.

Achmed: Why?  And what’s with that woman’s head?  It’s perfectly square.

H2 (to H1): I told you!  And her eyes are small and beady.

Achmed (snapping his fingers): I know!  That’s Greta Thunberg.  That obnoxious infidel harlot who lectures everybody all the time.

H1:  That’s it!  I knew I recognized her.  (doing an impression in a high-pitched voice) “How dare you?”

Achmed (in a similar voice): “You have stolen my dreams with your empty words!”

H2: I’ve never heard of her.

H1: You’re lucky.  She is terrible.  She screamed at the infidel men, and no one even flogged her!  I can’t imagine having to listen to her.

Achmed: She needs a ball gag to shut her up.

H1 and H2 (looking at each other, then at Achmed): A what?

Achmed:  A ball gag.  (looks at them)  You know, like in the movies, when a woman is… making noise, and…  Perhaps I’ve said too much.

H1:  Perhaps you have, Achmed!

Achmed (changing the subject):  Anyway, how about that head?  She’s the reason Allah made burkas, and told us to cover women with them.

H2: I’m not sure you could get a burka over that head! 

H1: If you did, it would look like you put a burka on a box! 

Achmed: And you’d still have to look at those weird beady eyes through the eye slot.

The three laughed, while Greta watched them, nervously.    

H1: I don’t know how those infidel men do it.

H2: Truly, they are very foolish. 

After a long moment of them staring, and Greta fidgeting…

H3:  Still, she can be my third wife.

H1: Isn’t your goat your third wife?

H3 (shrugging):  Then she can be my fourth wife. 

Greta (turning, dropping to the ground and grabbing the IDF guy’s legs):  Don’t leave me here.  Let me go back into Israel!

IDF guy: You want to come back into the nation of genocidal evildoers?

Greta: Yes, please.

IDF guy: What about the poor, oppressed Palestinians?   

H3 (calling and waving): Hello, infidel harlot?  Bring your square head over here, so I can smite you with the cane of instruction!

Greta (to H3):  No thank you.  But good luck with your intifada! (quietly, to the IDF guy, out of the corner of her mouth): Get…me…out of here.

And scene. 

Hamas delenda est!

Whoopi is Strange, Chase Strangio is Stranger, and Hank Johnson defiles Jimi Hendrix (posted 6/23/25)

Note: I drafted this column on Saturday afternoon, before we bombed the Iranian nuke sites, and I’ve got nothing to add to that great story. 

Except to say that it is really refreshing to see a military that is giving zero attention to understanding white rage, or figuring out how we can make helmets that fit over a male drag-queen pilot’s beehive wig, or establishing call-signs that aren’t ethnically offensive, and is focusing instead on putting warheads on targets.

I was going to say “putting warheads on foreheads,” but the Israelis seem to have already turned the correct foreheads into a thick goulash, served with a side of (General) salami on finger sandwiches.  Made of actual fingers!

So thank you for your service, American military bad asses!

Also, on Friday I teased my take on Greta Thunberg’s comedy of errors on the high seas, but this column went so long that I had to bump Greta back to Wednesday.  (But I still snuck a little Greta into this column, and I know you’ll recognize it when you hear it.)

I now return you to your regularly scheduled column…

To start today, how about some praise for our beloved CO, who has been making some AI graphics for my recent columns?  My favorite part of the cartoon version of me is the CORCA fedora, and if CO is reading this (and doesn’t He see all and know all?), the one he made with me drinking the “medicinal bourbon” is my favorite.  I’ve got a little firmer jawline in that one, and there’s a little Archer vibe to it. 

In fact, if I can request my own edits – and word on the street is that I’m a bit of a show pony (in an adorable, not off-putting sort of way) – how about a cross between Archer and me… and go a little heavy on the Archer? 

On The View last week, racist goblin Whoopi Goldberg said that it’s worse to be black in America today than to be a woman in Iran.  Obviously – just like Sunny Hostin and Ana Navarro – Whoopi Goldberg is an idiot.  But you could already tell that just from that Predator haircut of hers.  (For a moment, when I heard that Arnold was going on The View last week, I wished for a re-match of the Arnold-Predator battle at the end of the movie.) 

Her hatred of America (reliably echoed by Hostin and Navarro) typifies the worst of the left’s hostility that has driven away so many working class and minority citizens who used to be reliably blue voters.  Bill Maher summed it up best when he said that liberals “have to do something about The View.”

Because I’m an optimist and like to try to find something good to say about people when I can, I’ll say this for Whoopi: she was much better in Ghost than she was in Predator.

You may remember Chase Strangio because of her on-the-nose “nom de delusion,” or from her appearance in my nominees for Moron on the Month back in April.  She’s the wacky gal who underwent what had to have been a brutal regimen of hormone injections to transform herself from a confused little twig of a girl into a heavily tattooed, sad, older twig of a girl, with a boy’s haircut and the rugged masculinity and patchy beard of effete Lil’ Davy Hogg.  (I miss that demi-guy!)

Then she went to law school.  And because the legal bar ironically doesn’t have a mental stability bar that those who want to practice law must clear, she became a lawyer. 

And last December, she became the first gender-dysmorphia sufferer to appear before the Supreme Court, where she argued against states’ rights to ban surgical mutilation and injecting chemicals that do life-long damage into children in pursuit of the fantasy that humans can change genders. 

Or, in the left’s words, “gender-affirming health care.” 

The professional left: PhDs in Euphemisms, held back for five years in grade-school Reality 101 class.    

“How did that argument in front of SCOTUS go, Martin?” you are not asking.  Because: Duh! 

By the way, a couple of years ago I started reading some complete SCOTUS rulings, and I’ve been disappointed by the total absence of the word “duh” in any rulings, even those written by the clearest writers and thinkers on the court – Alito and Thomas, IMHO. 

I’d argue that some rulings should have consisted of nothing BUT that word.  When a case went up to settle the question of whether Americans have the right to own guns, or whether lefties really can’t racially or sexually discriminate against their fellow citizens, even if those citizens are creepy straight people or evil whites, I would have liked the shortest rulings ever.

Just the date, the case name (“Whiney Wusses vs. the 2nd Amendment” or “Racists who hate Whitey vs. Whitey”) and then: “Duh!”

Possibly with a few short concurrences (Thomas: “Get outta here with that nonsense.”  Alito: “Ya think?!”  Kavanaugh: “C’mon man!”).  And of course some cogent dissents from Kagan, Sotomayor and Ketanji Jeanne-Pierre: “Waahh!  Why can’t our political preferences trump the dusty old constitution?  How dare you?  You have stolen our dreams with your empty words!  Waaaahhh!”

Where was I?

Oh yeah: Miss Strange-io

Here are some excerpts from a Slate article in which she summed up her argument, which I swear to you I am not making up: “There is no such thing as the ‘male body.’  A penis is not a male body part.  It’s just an unusual body part for a woman.”

I’ll say!  In fact, if even one woman has one, that’s not unusual enough!  One solitary woman with a penis would make that situation far too common, and would threaten to tear what we call “reality” asunder. 

Not to mention ruining your Saturday night when you’d thought you were making good progress… right up until the worst reveal since enough mail-in ballots postmarked “Sorosville” came in to declare Joe Biden the winner in 2020.

But move over, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas and Cato the Elder, because C-Strange has the floor: “Of course the phrase [“born male”] is easier to understand, since it reinforces deeply entrenched views about what makes a man and what makes a woman.  But it is precisely these views that we must change.” 

Yes.  “Deeply entrenched.”  (And before anyone can object, I’ve said before that I’m not up on gay slang.  So if that phrase is offensive, mea culpa.) And good luck changing precisely THOSE views, Strange-y.               

Well, SCOTUS finally ruled on the case last week.  They found that Ms. “A-Penis-is-not-a-Male-Body-Part” is out of her non-binary gourd, and of course states can outlaw child mutilation performed to facilitate mental illness.

Unexpectedly!

Columnist T. Becket Adams put it best: “The obvious lesson here is: don’t send crazy people to argue your case before the Supreme Court.” 

I would add two corollaries:  Don’t argue a crazy position before the Supreme Court.

And if no conservative troll was there at the Court to play Chase into the room with the Doors’ “People are Strange,” (“People are strange, when you’re even stranger…”) we left money on the table. 

And on that musical transition, I’m going to end with one of the oddest bits of theatre from a theatre-kid congressman that you’ve ever seen. 

If you know who Hank Johnson is, it’s probably because he’s the special human who asked, totally seriously, in a congressional Armed Services committee hearing about a proposed increase to the size of a base on Guam, whether “the whole island will become so overly populated that it will tip over and capsize.”

YAY, democracy! 

So how does one follow up that assault on basic logic?  With an assault on some great music, in this case Jimi Hendrix’s “Hey Joe.”

Trigger warning: If you decide you want to watch it, and insist on doing so with the sound on, you can find the video online. But PLEASE follow these instructions first:

1. Wash two Extra-Strength Tylenol down with a heavy-pour shot of Knob Creek 9 bourbon (thank you God, for inventing Kentucky!) first.

2. Find Stevie Ray Vaughn’s live cover of “Voodoo Child” (from Austin City Limits) – the one with the reverb so thick you could brush your teeth with it, if you don’t mind some bleeding gums afterwards – and cue it up so that you can watch it immediately after you watch Hank Johnson’s abominable war crime of a cover.  Because you don’t want that thing bouncing around in your frontal lobes for too long afterward.

Johnson added his own lyrics to the song – and if his singing and off-tune guitar playing were like painting a mustache on the Mona Lisa (and they were), his lyrics were the equivalent of spray painting a big ol’ phallus on her.  Those lyrics are as awful as you’d guess, if you had the imagination of Stephen King on a toxic combination of mushrooms and meth. 

To wit: “Hey Trump, where you goin’ with that gun in your hand?  I’m going down the street to shoot down democracy.”

Ugh! 

Here’s my quick response – please listen with the melody in your head – in this rap battle between two talentless song writers:

“Hey Hank, where you goin’ with no brain in yo’ head?

Hey Hank, I said, where you goin’ with no brain in yo’ head?

I’m goin’ down to Congress,

‘Cause I’m worried that Guam’s ‘bout to capsize.

Yeah, we’re addin’ to our base there,

And I’m ‘fraid that Guam’ll capsize.

And that ain’t cool!

[begin surprise Kinison sampling filter]  Hey Hank, you’ve gotta be sh*tting me, right?

Hey Hank, I said you can’t actually think that Guam’s gonna capsize, right?

‘Cause you know what, Hank?

ISLANDS DON’T TIP OVER!!  

THEY’RE NOT BOATS, HANK!  THEY DON’T FLOAT!  THEY’RE ISLANDS! 

OH!  OHHHHHHH! THIS MORON CAN’T BE AN ELECTED OFFICIAL!

YOU HEAR THAT, HANK?  THAT’S JIMI HENDRIX SPINNING IN HIS GRAVE!!

OH!  OHHHHHHHHH!” [end Kinison sampling filter]

And, scene. 

My apologies to the Hendrix estate for even bringing this up.

By the way, regular readers know that I’m a Christian, but if I ever have moments of doubting God, it’s because of things like the fact that Stevie Ray Vaughn died in his mid-30s in a plane crash, and Sam Kinison died in his 30s because he was hit by a drunk driver. 

But Barbra Streisand is still alive in her late hundreds, and Madonna will be flogging her wrinkly old arse around on stage until she’s in her 90s. 

In the words of the great Oliver Anthony, “That math don’t seem right.”

Hamas delenda est!

I’m Watching Events in the Middle East with a Big Bag of Popcorn (posted 6/20/25)

I am continuing to love the news about Israel out-smarting the weird beards in Iran! 

I saw a RedState headline saying, “How Israel Lured Iran’s Top Generals to their Deaths,” and I immediately thought the same thing I’m assuming that you were all thinking:

Pay-per-view Goat Porn!

But no.  They actually managed to send authentic-sounding phone calls to the top 20 generals telling them to come to a meeting at a specific bunker.  Which was smart, because the ploy took advantage of the brutality of the Iranian regime. 

In a functional military structure, generals getting that phone call might have double-checked by calling someone else in the chain of command to verify the message.  But because the totalitarians running Iran rule by fear and cruelty, none of the generals dared to question the order.

 A Mossad agent was surveilling the bunker, and counting the terrorists as they showed up, possibly using a counting song from childhood.  (The version I heard was, “One little, two little, three little Warrens, four little, five little….”)

(#wemustneverstopmockingher) 

Luckily, the agent managed to not fall asleep as he was counting them – because he was not counting sheep, but sheep-ravagers – and when they were all inside, he called HQ with a “go-ahead” message. 

Which I fantasize was something coded, like, “The schmucks are in the mosque,” or “The putzes are ready for the mohel,” but was probably something more like, “The FA phase is complete; commence with the FO phase.” 

One of the big shots who experienced ROMD (rapid-onset molecular disassembly) in that bunker was a general named Hossein Salami.  (I’m guessing that spelling is wrong, but when you’re a juvenile mullah-mocker and God drops a name like “General Salami” on the deli counter, you grab it and run with it!)  

When the bunker was hit a few minutes later – possibly by one of those Jewish space lasers the anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists are always yammering about – it made for one of the simplest games of Clue ever. 

Because it was obviously the Jews, in the bunker, with the salami slicer.

Hilariously enough, Salami was talking like he was a foot long (if you know what I mean), in a press conference literally one day before he got smoked and diced, in this quote which I swear I am not making up: “Iran is fully ready for any scenario.”

Sooo…cue the sad trombone.  Or in this case, the sad shofar. 

Because there was obviously at least one scenario that Salami wasn’t fully ready for, and it involved Bibi putting the ballistic “club” into “club sandwich,” and not even bothering to ask Salami if he wanted his bun toasted.   

(They said to me, “Sure, Martin, you came up with an impressive number of fish-related puns about LA Mayor Karen Bass in a column last week.  But we bet you can’t create a half-dozen hilarious lunch meat references in your coverage of the Israeli attacks on Iranian nuke sites story.”   And I said, “Hold my deli platter and watch this.”)

Hey, while we’re in the Middle East, two more fantastic stories happened that I haven’t had the opportunity to comment on…and I can’t miss that chance.  The first one was when a clot of entitled, anti-Israel social justice warriors made a march to Gaza as part of an ambitious program called, “Virtue Signalers Without Borders.” 

Because they assumed that the evil Jews would be mean to them and not let them through the Israeli border into Gaza, they chose to go through Egypt instead.  

Annnnddddd…the Egyptians were mean to them, and wouldn’t let them through the border!  HA!  Every freaking detail of the story is delicious. 

The marchers were wearing keffiyehs.  (Because of course they were.) And I don’t have to tell you that a white, spoiled Jew-hater putting on a keffiyeh automatically increases his SFPI (Simpson Face Punchability Index) score by 20 points.  (Duh!)

When their convoy was stopped by Egyptian officials when it was over 100 miles from the Rafah crossing, the arrogant boneheads went right down the Bingo card of all the behaviors that work great on an Ivy League campus run by far-left faculty zealots and castrati administrators.

Via the NY Post: they took part in a sit-in on the road, they “threw tantrums,” and some “broke down in tears.”  They chanted, “Free, Free Palestine,” and waved several different countries’ flags.  They also lectured the Egyptians about how they don’t hate Jews enough, and many of them started threatening to go on a hunger strike.  

The Egyptians, on the other hand, used tactics very rarely seen on Ivy League campuses.

Egyptian police formed an unsmiling cordon of what looked like Pharoah’s bodyguards in tactical forces gear, and looked on as “Egyptian locals, some little more than children, pull[ed] the activists off the road” while others “could be seen hurling clubs and water bottles at the hapless protestors.” 

I think I speak for all of us American Christians and conservatives when I say, “Allahu Akbar!”

There may be more entertainment to come, because according to an article in Spiked called, “The March of the Useful Idiots” (chef’s kiss for that one), “Predictably, the would-be white saviors reacted with indignity when the uppity brown locals violently resisted their ‘march.’  They then resorted to anger and vitriol as they chanted, ‘F**k Egypt.’”

Sounds about right.  

Organizers posted on Instagram that, “There are now reports of force being used against participants, with some being detained, harassed, physically harmed and deported.”  

To which there are three good responses:

1.UNEXPECTEDLY!       

2. Oh no!  Well anyway…

3. Is it possible for Trump to call out the Egyptian National Guard to big blue cities in America?

Speaking of “hapless” and “little more than children,” the second story was even funnier, because it involved Saint Greta Thunberg, the Doom Pixie who’s gotten bored with the existential danger posed by changing weather, and has now turned her bottomless, self-righteous scorn onto the people who control the weather: the Jews!   

But the combination of the prescribed dose of medicinal bourbon I’ve taken and the amount of sack time I need before I start sanding and refinishing some wood floors tomorrow means that I’ll have to save that for Monday’s column. 

Have a great weekend, and as always…

Hamas delenda est!

Tennessee Trip, Israel Takes Iran Apart, + Book & Video Recommendations (posted 6/18/25)

I’m back from Tennessee, and still processing the trip. 

Heartbreakingly, mom didn’t recognize me three different times over the week, but only for about 10 minutes at a time, and the good moments outnumbered the bad.  I had to remind her literally a few hundred times that she lives there, and that I was visiting from Florida while my sis and her husband were in Memphis for a week.  “So you’re my babysitter,” she said, but without rancor.

She wears glasses on a cord around her neck, and has hearing aids.  When I took her to church on Sunday morning we were cutting it close on time, so I didn’t notice that she had neither her glasses nor hearing aids until she couldn’t hear the sermon very well, and also couldn’t follow along in her Bible.

“You’re not much of a babysitter, are you?” she said in the middle of the service.  And because her hearing aids were at home in the charger, she said it loudly.  We got a few looks.     

I’ve always been able to make mom laugh, and she’s never so much herself as when she’s laughing.  She’s always loved running jokes (I come by it naturally), and I got her with a stupid one dozens of times.  I’d ask, “Why did the chicken cross the road?” and she remembers that cliched old set-up well enough to roll her eyes and start to make some dumb reply, which I’d interrupt with, “Be-CAWS!” in my eerily accurate chicken voice.

Each time she’d get startled, then remember that I’d got her with that one many times before, and she’d laugh at the stupidity of the joke and my shamelessness in repeating it.  If being startled and then belly laughing could cure Alzheimer’s, I’d be up for a Nobel prize in medicine. 

We took day trips to small towns in the area each day. On Saturday we went to the small town of Pulaski, but arrived to find the downtown cordoned off and the place jammed with people celebrating Flag Day.  (Because: Tennessee!) 

But because it’s 2025, there was also a small group of protestors doing their “No Kings” thing.  There were maybe 30 of them, and you could tell that we weren’t in Seattle or LA: they skewed older and well-behaved, and their signs weren’t obscene, and they had American flags.  That could be because they know their audience in Tennessee – folks don’t take kindly to violent rioting by Mexican-flag-waving d-bags there – but I prefer to think it’s because they are well-meaning people who are exercising their free speech rights and protesting for a cause they believe in. 

Of course, I think it’s silly to believe that Trump is a fascist or would-be king on the verge of establishing his monarchy.  One subtle clue that that’s not the case: over a thousand groups protested in 50 states, and nobody was beheaded or pierced by crossbow bolts, and there was no drawing or quartering.  No one was even arrested or hassled, unless they were violent.   (In which case I would have rooted for a healthy bout of crossbowing.)   

Of course my sweet mom didn’t know what was going on, but when she saw all of those people holding flags and signs and waving, she waved back happily.  Which is one more poignant memory for me.  Mom was happy to encourage people waving American flags, and the protestors now feel like they’ve reached at least one supportive old lady – not knowing that she’s got Alzheimer’s and has no idea what ideas they are supporting. 

So God bless us, everyone, I guess.

Meanwhile in the larger world, Israel was making me very happy by dropping a whole series of kosher kabooms all over the Iranian nuke program and the top people involved in it! 

People didn’t think Israel could top the exploding pagers, then the exploding walkie-talkies, then the killing of various Sinwars and Nasrallahs (plus assorted Achmeds waiting for their chance to move up from triple A – and yes, the “A”s all stand for “a-hole”) with drones and missiles.

And Israel said, “Hold my Manischewitz and watch this.” 

I love every detail.  The Israelis built a drone base inside Iran, from which they launched drones to destroy a bunch of Iranian missiles and launchers.  They devised a ruse to keep a bunch of top Iranian generals in one place so that they could wipe them out with one missile.  (Sure, those guys buy their missiles wholesale and not retail, but there’s no sense in wasting them!) 

It’s a sign of the mullahs’ dysfunction that they steer young Iranian science nerds away from fields that would improve the world and the lives of the Iranian people, and toward developing Jew-killing nukes instead.  And since Friday night, Iran has become a much less nerdy place, inshallah. (That’s Islam talk for, “I regret all of my decisions.”)

I enjoyed the hilarious clip that CO (peace be upon him) posted of the Iranian Rachel Maddow, aka the gal reading the news when a “Hebrew Hello” hit very near the newsroom.  (She’s got more burka and sex appeal than Rachel, but less America-hatred.)  And though my Farsi is a little rusty, I think I’ve come up with a pretty accurate translation of what was said in that short video.

She starts out with the usual, “Death to America!  Death to Israel!  Trump is a fascist!  We like the cut of Gavin Newsom’s jib.  We will wipe out the evil pig-dogs with our swords of justice and—”  BAM!  WHAMMO! KAPOW!  (Yes, I did watch a little Batman when I was a kid, thanks for asking.)

The lights went out and came back on, and everything on camera shook for a few seconds.    

“Aaaiiiiieeeee!” she continued. “I’ve soiled my beekeeper outfit. Forget that pig-dog comment.  MAGA!  And also MIGA! (Make Israel [and Iran] Great Again)  I for one welcome our new Hebraic overlords!”

And, scene.

One other highlight was the pic of where an Israeli missile hit one specific apartment’s bedroom, killing a top Iranian general and the leaving the rest of the building remarkably undamaged.  Reports that his three mistresses staying in the apartment at the time – two of them goats – were also unharmed have not been confirmed.

Finally, I’ve got a quick book and a song recommendation.  The book is “The Promise,” by Robert Crais.  Crais has written over 20 detective novels featuring main characters Elvis Cole and Joe Pike, and I thought I’d read them all.  But I had somehow missed The Promise (2015).  I especially liked a great sub-plot involving a military K-9 with a second career as a police dog in this one.  (As always, they had me at “K-9.”)

The video is for Oliver Anthony’s new country/blues song, “Scornful Woman.”  He released it two weeks ago, and I heard about it on Joe Rogan’s show right before I headed up to TN.  Anthony went from unknown to a famous singer/songwriter with his anti-politician song “Rich Men North of Richmond” less than two years ago.  His songs are always raw and personal, and now that his wife has filed for divorce, this one is 3 minutes of pain from a talented musician.

The video and song were recorded in a small house in West Virginia during a snowstorm in January, and the visuals are great: an old barn and three big dogs in the snow and in the house, and Anthony and two other musicians recording in make-shift conditions inside.  Interspersed video clips of firefighters battling a burning house echo the lyrics perfectly.

Anthony sings and plays a Dobro resonating guitar and drums, and he’s joined by two virtuosos, one on the violin – although in this context, it’s really a fiddle – and one on the electric guitar.  (“Hey Martin,” you might be asking, if you don’t have my vast musical expertise, “What’s the difference between a violin and a fiddle?”  A violin has “strings,” whereas a fiddle has “strangs.”  You’re welcome.)

The song slides back and forth between grieving and furious, and Anthony’s delivery elevates his plain but evocative lyrics.  (When he rhymes “nightmare” with “right there,” both simple lines cut deep.)  And the two instrumental solos tear through the small house like the fire imagery does. 

The fiddle player goes first, somehow ripping a guitar solo out of a violin.  And when the guitarist closes things out, he wails on his instrument like it owes him money, and possibly slept with his best friend, too.  The final effect suggests three talented musicians who just went through horrific divorces and are dealing with it the way men do: by howling and breaking things.

The pivotal lines are a cri de coeur: “And the court said fifty-fifty, but the math don’t seem right, with a scornful woman.”

Whoo.  The song is great, and painful, and it makes me very grateful that I miraculously closed on my smoke show wife 36 years ago, and have never had to feel her scorn.

Hamas delenda est!

While I Spend Time in TN, LA Goes Crazy and Israel Goes Roman on Iran (posted 6/14/25)

So I drove up to Tennessee on Tuesday to spend a week with my mom while the sis and her husband take a vacation, and it’s been a little rough.  Mom’s still putting up a game fight, but her Alzheimer’s is breaking our hearts as it continues on its cruel path. 

The ratio of lucid moments to foggy ones is diminishing, but she’s at her best in the daytime, and we’ve had some laughs and some good food.  I’m storing up more good memories, and trying to appreciate every moment with her before I head back to Florida on Monday.

The nature of this kind of visit has imparted a little fogginess to my own thoughts, and put me into the kind of weird, suspended animation that I always feel while traveling.  The world is still going on around me, but I’m disconnected from it in a way I’m not when I’m at home and in my own element.  I catch a few snippets of news during the day, and then a bit more before bed, with insufficient time to digest most of it.

Of course, I managed to be here during a slow news week, right?

Holy cats!  Before leaving home I barely had a chance to consider Greta’s Grifter Flotilla being stopped by the Israelis before they could deliver to the starving Gazans their desperately needed bounty of… four cheese sandwiches and a bag of chocolate chip cookies that someone had already half finished.

I sensed fodder for a solid column out of the Doom Pixie’s prevails, but that story was quickly pushed to the back-burner by the developing story of the LA riot, during which the leftists have beclowned themselves six ways to Sunday. 

And that was just by last Sunday.  Since then, they’ve beclowned themselves twenty-two ways to Thursday, with much more beclownation to come. 

Melting-face Maxine Waters – a fright wig atop a fright face – got a door slammed in her face by a no-nonsense employee when she tried to awe him with her congressional privilege.  Later she confronted some armed National Guardsmen and challenged them to gun her down, warning them that, “If you’re gonna shoot me, you’d better shoot straight.”  (“Whew!” said Mayor Pete.  “I’m safe.”)  

Tragically for the nation, no one took Waters up on her offer.  So she was still un-shot when she later gave a press conference in which she categorically denied that there had been any violence during the violent riots.

Unlike most of the lying leftists, who were smart enough to downplay or excuse the violence of their mobs (“It wasn’t a problem until Trump called out the guard, 99% of LA is totally peaceful,” etc.), Mad Maxine swung for the fences, denying what PWFE (People With Functioning Eyes) had actually seen. “Don’t think that somehow, because they called out the National Guard, there was violence.  There was no violence! I was on the street!  I know!” 

Some were tempted to believe her, because she did look like she had been on the street.  More specifically, like she’d been tossed onto the street and landed face-first.  And then bounced several times, still face-first.

But even those who tried to be cagier, and just downplay the violence, were humiliated by a combination of inept staffers and a loving God with a great sense of humor.  Two Dem congresswomen – the one whose name I remember is Judy Chu – appeared on a CNN interview, with their heads in a small box on the screen, while most of the screen was showing live coverage from LA.  

So as Judy prattled on about how the protestors were really remarkably restrained and peaceful, right beside her stupid head was a giant video of clouds of black smoke roiling up from burning cars, and clips of rioters throwing rocks and chunks of concrete at cop cars.  Many commenters observed the parallels to the infamous video from a blue city in 2020, in which a “journalist” insisted that the protests were “mostly peaceful,” as he was framed against the hellish conflagration of an entire city block behind him.  

Two of the most iconic images of the latest unveiling of the left’s true nature have been the moron on a motorcycle riding around a burning car while waving a Mexican flag, and the Waymo cars being devoured in roaring fires.

The fact that they were Waymo cars brings extra layers of irony to the rioters’ behavior.  If they had attacked vehicles that are logically associated with what they are ostensibly outraged by – an ICE van, cop cars – that would still be evil, but at least comprehensible as the kind of political gesture that narcissistic social justice warriors would make. 

But Waymo has never done anything to these troglodytes, other than offer an innovative way to get across town that is much cheaper than the car they can’t afford.  (Because living in mommy’s basement and whining on Bluesky has no monetary value whatsoever.) 

And the technological sophistication it took to develop and deploy driverless vehicles poignantly contrasts with the mindless urge to destroy that motivates the thugs who can barely make a Molotov cocktail work.  (And that involves fire, one of mankind’s first discoveries!)

That technology also highlights the petty cruelty of the rioters.  They call a vehicle made by a company that has done nothing wrong, and it faithfully shows up, and welcomes them with open doors.  And the mouth-breathing scavengers set it on fire, and dance around its flaming corpse.  

But then the horrific story of the first-ever Boeing Dreamliner crash in India…battled for news time with a handful of super-satisfying arrests of some of the worst of the bad bunch of leftist nihilists who are being quickly caught during riots. 

But that was bumped by Senator (guess which party?) Alex Padilla’s painful theater-kid turn when he interrupted Kristi Noem’s press conference by trying to bum-rush her while hollering dishonest non-sequiturs with all the persuasive power of a bag lady disrupting a city council meeting with a shrill screed about the Bilderbergers and the Trilateral Commission. 

Then last night, the news starts coming in from Israel:  Netanyahu has gone full Michael Corleone at the Christening, and today he’s settling all family business.  Initial reports are that Israel killed a bunch of top iranian generals and nuclear scientists, and blasted the most prominent nuclear enrichment sites, along with some missile batteries that Iran might use to retaliate against Israel.  And new waves of strikes are on the way as we speak.

Reading about that made me wish that we’d consulted with the IDF months ago.  Because if they could pull off that pager masterpiece, I’m sure they could have equipped some Waymo vehicles with ball-bearing-laden plastic explosives, or exotic poisonous snakes in tiny catapults, or a noxious gas that causes explosive diarrhea and temporary blindness when the doors open.  Then our guys could just wait at a parking lot full of Waymos, until one-by-one, the vehicles get called by some anarchist creep, and pull out and hum away, carrying their surprise for the malevolent revolutionaries.

Am I saying that we should set up violent nihilists to become diced, blind, envenomed and beshitten because of their own evil schemes?

I’m saying we should have that conversation.

Okay, I might not be able to write another column until after I get back home on Monday night.  But in the meantime, pray for our law enforcement, root for the Israeli badasses bringing the karma to Iran, and as always…

Hamas delenda est!

Thoughts on LA, SCOTUS, and Joe Biden’s Autopen (posted 6/9/25)

Well, LA’s on fire.  Again. 

And this time, as in the past, the Woke Avengers team assembled.  Led by Gavin the Haircut and Karen “Absentee Woman” Bass – plus an assortment of anonymous, mediocre DEI hires who have never done an honest day’s work in their lives – they leapt into action. 

Annnddd… did nothing for 36 hours, at least.

Well, that’s not fair to the Big Mouth Bass, because she released an outraged statement saying, “We will not stand for this!” 

Unfortunately, by “this” she didn’t mean hordes of violent thugs rioting and attacking ICE agents enforcing our laws.  No, the “this” for which she won’t stand is…wait for it…ICE agents enforcing our laws.      

I’m not making that up.  Even though Bass tried to walk that idiotic statement back within about 12 hours, the damage had already been done. The Bass had taken the bait, and been hooked on her own stupidity.  And like another fish-faced far-left mayor (I’m looking at you, Lori Lightfoot…and that’s not easy), this might finally cause her to be reeled in.  Because she appears to have just been flipped to her dorsal side, and prepared for a political grilling that she probably won’t survive. 

But hey, it’s LA.  So maybe she’ll get a “catch and release” parole.   Angelenos sure seem to like doing that with violent illegals.

(They said, “Hey Martin, I bet you can’t come up with 8 juvenile fish-related insults in a story on riots in a Democrat city.” And I said, “Hold my bourbon and watch this.”)

Two bits of good news can come out of this debacle.  First, the pro-illegal-immigrant Left is showing who they are (again!), and that belies nearly everything they’ve said about illegal immigration for the last several decades.  It’s hard to make the case that the vast majority of illegals love America and just want to assimilate and contribute when thousands of them are attacking American law enforcement, burning American flags, and flying the Mexican flag.    

Second, Trump has learned from his past mistakes.  In 2020 he allowed antifa and BLM leftist mobs – and a school of a-political scavenging looters swimming in their wake (bonus fish reference!) – to run roughshod in dozens of leftist cities around the country.  He didn’t call out the National Guard, maybe because he figured that if leftist mayors and governors were content to let their cities burn and would fight any help he tried to give, they could reap what they’ve sown. 

But Trump 2.0 means bidness.  He’s firing as many swamp creatures as he can, blasting away at Ivy League Jew-haters like a truckload of explosive de-groining pagers, and hammering the left with EOs like Sonny Corleone tuning up Carlo with that garbage-can lid.  (If you haven’t watched the Godfather frequently enough to get that reference, begone!)

And this time around, the TWA (Triumvirate of Whoop Ass) – Trump, Hegseth and Hulk Homan™ (plus their chick sidekick in too much makeup and a too-tight costume, Kristi Noem, God bless her) – are going to make the violent radicals WISH the worst thing they had to deal with was some Rooftop Koreans!

Let the mass arrests begin, and the mass deportations accelerate!

Hey, speaking of fish out of water (boom!), I’ve got to give the most unexpected shout-out ever to – prepare to deploy your smelling salts – the three leftist SCOTUS justices!  Each of them wrote a clear and logical (i.e. conservative) UNANIMOUS ruling last Thursday, and I couldn’t be more shocked if I’d been flipping through the channels and came across AOC cogently explaining the Theory of Relativity!

Kagan wrote Smith & Wesson vs. Mexico, finding that of course S&W can’t be held responsible for what violent scumbags do with their product, so mind your business – along with your cartels and fentanyl – Mexico! 

Sotomayor wrote Catholic Charities vs. Wisconsin, finding that of course you can’t discriminate against a religious charity just because you’re a Christophobic bigot.

And perhaps most surprising of all, Ketanji Jeanne-Pierre (HA!) wrote Ames v. Ohio Youth Services, finding that of course discrimination is unconstitutional, even if it’s “reverse” discrimination against whitey or straight people. 

I’m flabbergasted, and don’t know whether to scratch my watch or wind my butt.  But just in case this is a sign of the End of Days – and how could it not be? – please get yourself right with Jesus, pronto!

Finally, going from the most unexpected story ever, to perhaps the most expected story ever, I give you the latest in the Joe Biden auto-pen controversy. 

Last week Biden refuted the contention that others had signed many official documents for him without his knowledge, due to his well-documented descent from low IQ hack to confused, to dementia-ridden, to full-blown, stage 4, cuckoo-fried-chicken status.

When his forthcoming statement was announced, many observers watched with bated breath, wondering whether his voice would be steady, his posture upright, and his delivery graceful.

Annnnddddd… he released a written statement instead.

Because obviously the best possible way to refute an accusation that you are too far gone to make a clear statement, so someone else had to produce writing on your behalf, is to…produce a statement written by someone else on your behalf.

Brilliant! 

How do I know for certain that Joe Biden didn’t write “his” statement? 

Because I am a professional student of the written word, with a mind like a steel trap and keen insight into all matters linguistic.

If you don’t believe me – and to quote St. Greta the Self-Righteous, “How dare you?!  You have stolen my dreams with your empty words!” – here is Biden’s laughably phony statement:   

“Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency.  I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false.”

And now, here is how that statement would have appeared, IF Brandon had actually written it himself:

“Let me be Claire.  I made the incisions in my presh-dentsy.  I made declensions about pardons, execrable borders, luhsshlation and presti… prestidigi…  Come on man!  Any digestion that I didn’t is raddish and face.  I mean…rhombus and pulse.  You know, you know the thing.   Ummm… uhhh……………………………………………………… We finally beat Medicare.”

And, scene.

Hamas delenda est!

The Butterfield Fallacy Hits the WAPO’s Analysis of Why Fentanyl Trafficking has Plummeted (posted 6/6/25)

Regular readers will have noticed my repeated, sardonic usage of the word, “Unexpectedly!”  I started this a while ago, when I came across a clueless partisan reporter writing that in the wake of a push to defund the police, “crime unexpectedly rose.” 

That “unexpectedly” was so jarringly dumb that I couldn’t help but mock it, and the ideological prejudice that it betrayed.  How can anybody not realize that if you make it harder for cops to fight criminals and crime, more criminals are going to commit more crimes? 

I’ll tell you how: they are raised in an ideological bubble, and then they go to J-school and receive a pre-digested set of assumptions, prejudices and conclusions, and those congeal, and then harden into the cement of obliviousness.  Then, on graduation day, the newly minted “journalists” receive a diploma and a set of partisan blinders.  And they snap those on, and from that day forward they have a very hard time discerning basic cause and effect. 

A month or so ago, I was discussing this process with a buddy of mine – some bourbon was involved – and he told me I was talking about the Butterfield Fallacy.  I told him that I don’t even know any gay slang, and also that I thought that was actually a Robert Ludlum novel.  (Drink at least three double shots of bourbon, and that line will be funnier than it is right now.)

The next day I looked it up, and found out that my buddy was right.  Fox Butterfield was a  writer for the NYT about 20 years ago, and among other things, he wrote a series of stories about crime in which he discussed what he called, “the paradox of a falling crime rate but a rising prison population.”  In one story, he wrote about an increase in the prison population “despite a decline in serious crime.” 

In other words, his “paradox” and “despite” were my “unexpectedly.”  The bad news is that I thought I was coming up with something new, and wasn’t.  The good news is that the cognitive horsepower of Ivy Leaguers never fails to disappoint.

Did I mention that Fox Butterfield graduated from Harvard University?  Because of course he did. 

Also: Unexpectedly!

A few days ago we got another fantastic example of this enduring phenomenon, this time from the Washington Post, where “Democracy dies in imbecility.”

The WAPO discovered an odd anomaly: there seems to have been a big decrease in fentanyl seizures on our southern border recently. 

I know what you’re thinking – and it starts with “Duh!” – but hold that obvious thought. 

Because I’ve gone down into an underground chamber here at stately Simpson manor, taken my conical purple wizard hat out of its pressurized Lucite case, put it on my head, and magically traveled 1000 miles and 5 days back in time, to a WAPO conference room in DC, where an editor was discussing story ideas with a clot of young reporters.

Just to establish the visuals: the male reporters tended toward man buns and sad David Hogg beards, and half of them identified as non-binary, while the females were all scowls and unnatural hair colors and a lot of anger at their dads.

Let’s listen in…

Editor: So there’s this big drop in fentanyl seizures at the southern border, and we need to figure out whether it’s worth covering.  The first step is to brainstorm about the possible causes.

Male Reporter (MR) 1:  Racism!

Editor: What does fentanyl have to do—

Female Reporter (FR) 1: Sexism!

MR 1: Come on Karen, you always say sexism.

FR 1: Well you always say racism, Bruce!

FR 2 (under her breath):  It usually IS sexism.

FR 1: I know, right? (They fist bump, and glare at Bruce.)

Editor: I don’t think it’s racism or sexism.

FR 3: Says the white man.

Editor: I identify as a gender-nonconforming Native American!  You know that.

MR 2: You’re as white as Elizabeth Warren.

MR 1 (snickering): #wemustneverstopmockingher

FR 2: But you ARE a little on the gender-nonconforming side.

(FR 1 chuckles and fist bumps FR 2.)

Editor: Knock off the fist bumping!  Does anyone have any other ideas about what might have caused the drop in fentanyl trafficking?

MR 3: Global warming?

FR 3 (rolling her eyes): Not this again.

MR 3: It’s an EXISTENTIAL CRISIS!

Editor: Of course it is.  And it’s probably going to kill us all.  But what does global warming have to do with less fentanyl at the southern border?

MR 1: Sun spots.  (Confused looks from around the table.)  Sun spots cause global warming, and the increased temperatures make Mexico even hotter, and the drug mules are probably passing out with heat exhaustion and dying half way across the desert.

MR 3: Sun spots don’t cause global warming, Bruce.  We’ve been over this a thousand times.

FR 3 (leaning conspiratorially toward the other female reporters):  Here goes the countdown. (She raises her index finger and looks at MR 3.)

MR 3 (counting on his fingers):  It’s big disgusting SUVs, cow farts, and capitalism.

Editor:  I’m not sure—

MR 2:  What about the Jews?

Editor: What?

MR 2: Maybe it’s… the Jews?

MR 1 (elbowing MR2 and whispering loudly):  Janice is Jewish.

FR 3: No I’m not!  My idiot dad is Jewish, but that doesn’t mean I am.  (quieter)  Stupid patriarchal jerk!

Editor: What do the Jews have to do with fentanyl in Mexico?

MR 2:  Isn’t the emperor of Mexico a Jewish lady?  Frieda Finebaum, or something like that?

FR 1: Mexico doesn’t have an emperor, Gary!  And their president is Claudia Sheinbaum.

MR 2:  That’s it!  And she’s Jewish, right?

FR 3: Yes, but what does that have to do with—

FR 1:  Well, they’re really sneaky.  Everybody knows that.  (FR 3 crosses her arms and stares at her.)  I mean, like your dad.  A lot of them are sneaky, patriarchal jerks like your dad.

MR 3: I’ve GOT it!  (Everybody turns toward him.)  Sheinbaum is a greedy Jewish capitalist who hatched this evil plot to get rich on fentanyl money, and she brought the sexist and racist cartels in on it, so they’ve been loading up poor women of color with fentanyl and sending them across the desert to sneak into America, except that global warming is killing them before they can make it to the border.  

Editor (after a long pause, during which everyone looks at everyone else): So you’re saying that it’s racism, sexism, Judaism, capitalism AND global warming?

MR 3: Exactly!

Everyone starts nodding excitedly.  The editor slowly does too.

Editor (grinning): It all makes sense.  (looking around the room) I smell a Pulitzer!  (He stands up quickly.) Everybody get packed.  This story is going to require all hands on deck, so you’re all heading for the border!  Hail Satan!

And, scene.          

Okay, I can’t completely vouch for the accuracy of that probably very accurate scenario.  But I can point you to the actual WAPO story that resulted, which I am not making up. It was written by Mary Beth Sheridan, and she’s the Post’s “Mexico and Central America Correspondent,” so you know she’s really good. 

The headline of the story: “The Mysterious Drop in Fentanyl Seizures on the US-Mexico Border.”   The sub-head: “The reasons behind the decrease of fentanyl seizures…are complex.”

“Mysterious”!  “Complex”!  Seriously, you can’t make this up.  The writer later goes for the trifecta, calling the drop “puzzling.”

By the end of the article, the author even performs the Butterfield Rectal-Cranial Inversion move (which HAS to be gay slang doesn’t it?  And that’s not just the bourbon talking).  To wit:

“The decline is occurring even as the Trump administration has deployed thousands of troops to the border and expanded drone flights.  With more boots on the ground, you’d think seizures would go up, not down.”

Again, as God is my witness, I did not make that up.  This “journalist” is a purported expert on the region, and she knows that Trump has pulled out all the stops and gone Roman on the border.  But she still cannot see the forest for the trees. 

In fact, she can’t see the forest OR the trees.  Or the gigantic meadow in front of the forest and the trees.  Or the creek that flows through the meadow and into the forest, and between the trees.

It doesn’t occur to her that now that we’ve got a president who is serious about closing the border, the border has been closed.  Or that cartels might send less fentanyl to a closed border being manned by thousands of Hulk Homan™ types with military weaponry than they did to a wide-open border with a big banner saying, “Bienvenidos, Shriners and Cartel Members!”

The tariffs might be confusing, and Musk might be slapping Trump like Mrs. Macron slapping Mr. Macron, and every partisan district judge with a Napolean complex might be dreaming up new reasons why the constitution forbids the Chief Executive from carrying out the duties of the Chief Executive. 

But this is the quality of our opposition, people. 

They’re defending wife-beating gang-bangers and Jew-hating, illegal Egyptian pyromaniacs, and using Tampon Tim and Lil’ Davy Hogg to appeal to young male voters, and they can’t figure out why closing our borders would result in less cross-border crime.

I think we’re going to be fine.

Hamas delenda est! 

A Little Political Taxonomy(posted 6/4/25)

Perceptive and regular readers of my columns may have noticed that I am periodically annoyed by our elite leftist leaders in DC, the MSM, and the Ivy League. 

If by “periodically” I mean “7 days a week, when I’m not asleep.”  And if by “annoyed” I mean “infuriated.”  And I do, in both cases, mean that. 

But there is another type of nationally prominent lefty who just frustrates me, because they demonstrate the ability to think clearly and call out problems on both sides…but then can’t sustain that and come to the right conclusion.

There are so many people of the first type from whom to choose, and their failings are so obvious as to need little explication.  So for today I’ll discuss just one, and his actions just this week, on just one issue. 

The Dem in question is Jamie Raskin, and the issue is the terrorist attack in Boulder, Colorado on Sunday. 

By now you all know the basic details: Muslim illegal immigrant named Muhamad (unexpectedly!) who hates Jews (unexpectedly!) uses a makeshift flamethrower and Molotov cocktails to badly burn 8 Jews who were peacefully marching to plead for the release of the hostages still being held by Hamas terrorists in Gaza.  (The terrorist reportedly used fire in his attack because he had been unable to get a gun, due to his illegal status.)   At least two of his victims had to be airlifted to a hospital, and if they survive, will face a long and extremely painful recovery.

A few more details make the story even more infuriating.  At least one of the victims was an octogenarian Holocaust survivor.  A local police official – hours after video had widely circulated showing the terrorist screaming, “Free Palestine!” and, “I did it for Gaza!” – insisted that the scumbag’s motives were not known.

Then a genius named Juliette Kayyem got on CNN late that evening and blasted Kash Patel and Dan Bongino for having declared that the obviously targeted terror attack was a “targeted terror attack.”  Juliette was not buying that small step to a well-supported conclusion.

But soft! What ditz through yonder camera speaks?  Tis Juliette, and she’s a total moron: “It makes law enforcement look disorganized, and it makes the FBI look so juvenile, like why are you getting ahead of the police chief who says, ‘I don’t know what this is?’”

Did I mention that Juliette is a former DHS official in the Obama administration, and a former Harvard professor?  Because of course she is.

Anyway, Muhamad came to the US on a tourist visa in 2022.  When he broke our laws by overstaying that visa, the Biden administration demonstrated their “tough on crime” bona fides by… rewarding him with a work visa for two more years!  And then he illegally stayed again, when that visa expired.  (Please insert an all-caps “Unexpectedly” after each of the three previous sentences.)

So to recap: an anti-Semitic Muslim illegal immigrant carried out a horrific attack using fire.  From that set of circumstances, one might logically draw the conclusion that we have serious problems involving vicious anti-Semitism, mass illegal immigration, and even a statistically over-represented tendency to violence among some (not all) adherents to a certain Religion of Peace.  And possibly a “fire-control” problem.

But not if one is Jamie Raskin D-(‘oh!)- Maryland, who turned his awesome Sherlockian powers of deduction toward Boulder, and quickly arrived at the culprit: Guns! 

The poor dunce went on MSNBC, and said, “We are still in the midst of a gun violence epidemic…. This is why we are for a ban on military-style assault weapons in the country.  Our lax gun laws are a danger to everybody in America.”

I’m not making that up. He looked at a multi-faceted crime with zero guns involved, and decided that guns were the problem.

I thought about guns when I saw that news story, too.  But my thoughts were more along the lines of, “I wish that had happened in Texas, Florida, Tennessee, or some other free state where citizens exercise their 2nd amendment rights more vigorously.  Because if it had, that hateful creep would have been lucky to light up his first octogenarian before he was stitched with bullets from his tiny groin to his evil cranium.”

And THEN we would have all been spared that smoking bullet-magnet’s idiotic political slogans, and Juliette would have been justified in scratching her empty head and wondering what his motive had been.

So Juliette and Jamie are the type of leftists who drive me crazy, because they are propagandist hacks who wouldn’t tell an inconvenient truth or make a good-faith argument if their lives depended on it.

But the second type – and there aren’t a lot of them – are frustrating, because they often show that they are capable of clear thought and smart criticism, and yet continue to make common cause with those like Raskin, Schumer, et al.  

John Fetterman is one.  Since he recovered from his stroke, he’s frequently been a beacon of sanity in the Dem congress.  He’s called out the anti-Semitism on the left, praised Trump’s closing of the border, and criticized his party’s shameful coverup of Biden’s physical and mental infirmity.  But he still votes with them the vast majority of the time, even though he’s proven that he knows better.

The best example of this type is Bill Maher, who I think I’ve written about before.  He’s a condescending egotist who I wouldn’t want to hang out with, but he’s intelligent and often very funny, and he regularly takes a scalpel (and a machete) to woke errors and idiocies like nobody else on the left.  And yet, at the end of the day and after demonstrating that he’s got 20/20 political vision…he puts his leftist blinders back on and returns to rote conservative bashing.

Or, as one of my favorite Bible verses puts it, “As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.”

I don’t watch Maher’s program, but I often watch clips of it that show up on my various political feeds, and his discussion of Harvard’s self-destructive arrogance this past weekend was a good example. 

He spends nearly 6 solid minutes tearing Ivy League education a new one, with insight and sarcasm.  He points out that students aren’t being educated but indoctrinated, and indicts woke intolerance, feckless administrators, and the hypocritical arrogance of gullible, entitled youth.  He points out that Harvard is “an assh*le factory.”

But then – so frustrating! – he puts on his pinko-colored glasses, and goes every kind of wrong.

The pivot comes when he grudgingly says that Harvard does turn out some decent people.  But his first example tells you all you need to know: “But for every Barack Obama, there are two Josh Hawleys.”  And he doesn’t mean the comparison as an insult to Obama – which it should be – or a compliment to Hawley.  Which it should be. 

For the next 3 minutes, he lobs evidence-less ad hominem attacks at Hawley, and then lists those on the right who have Ivy League degrees with an acid tone of disdain: Vivek, DeSantis, Cruz, SCOTUS members, etc. 

That’s it.  He just lists them.  He doesn’t cite any stupid or evil things they’ve done, or any of their flaws.  He just sneers their names, and his audience of trained seals applauds accordingly. 

I keep finding myself thinking of the Parable of the Talents, and how those who squander greater gifts are judged more harshly than the less gifted who don’t make much of themselves.  I look at dullards like Hank Johnson, AOC, or Eric Swalwell, and I’m not sure they even know how dumb or wrong they usually are. 

But then I look at someone like Maher, deftly dissecting the destructive foolishness of the Left, before immediately backsliding into juvenile, simple-minded smears of the Right.  I watch him proving that he knows better, and then acting like he doesn’t, and I shake my head.       

I don’t know which is worse. 

But I do know that I’d rather be on our side – even with all of our squishes and weasels! – than on theirs.         

Hamas delenda est!

It’s a New Month, but Harvard Has Little to be Proud About, & Hamas is Running Out of Sinwars (posted 6/2/25)

Well, it’s the beginning of another Haughty Spirit month, so if you’re super stoked about your sexuality, you do you.  But also, remember that everything doesn’t have to happen in public.  Because there’s a time and place—

Sorry.  My crack staff has just given me a correction, and here at the Simpsonian Institution we strive for accuracy.  It turns out that I’d mixed up my King James texts.  To wit, “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”

So it’s Pride month, not Haughty Spirit month.  My bad.  Though in past years when I wasn’t able to look away from some parade floats on tv soon enough, I noticed that there was quite a bit of haughty spirit exposed too.  Along with a disturbing amount of big bellies and bare arses.  So thanks for those visuals, you exhibitionist loons.

I’m not going to ask why there’s no heterosexual pride month, because I think it’s weird to feel proud about sexuality.  After all, as Cole Porter pointed out, “Birds do it.  Bees do it.  Even educated fleas do it.”  And I’m not big on recorded sexuality parades of any type, anyway.  (Though if you insist on having one, spotting a “reverse-cowgirl” float as I’m going through the channels wouldn’t be as unsettling as a “dudes in arse-less chaps” float would.)

By the way, note to aspiring rappers out there: Re-read those lyrics.  They’re almost 100 years old and they’re about sex, but they’re still remembered, and they’re still goofy and fun.  And there isn’t a single “b*tch” or n-word in there.  (If you think anyone will be remembering “WAP” a century from now, you’re as dumb as your “songs” sound.)

Anyway, there’s no pride month for eccentric males like me, who prefer women, and I’m not asking for one.  Although again, if we must have some sort of sexuality-related public celebration, I suggest that a Great Beauties Hall of Fame would be a good alternative.  I am even willing to suggest some nominees for the first class of inductees, all of whom had an impact on an impressionable young Martacus: Sophia Loren, Raquel Welch, Farrah Fawcett and Nena (of “99 LuftBallons” fame). 

Loren and Welch were at the height of their powers before I reached puberty, but when I saw both of them on tv reruns – Loren as a sponge diver in a movie I have no other memory of, and Welch fighting off dinosaurs in a fur bikini (that one was based on a true story, I think)…  Well, let’s just say that I knew even then that I wouldn’t be going down the “Mayor Pete Path,” if you know what I mean.

Farrah is self-explanatory, and you wouldn’t think that a doe-eyed, one-named cutie singing in German would stick in one’s mind, but the heart wants what it wants.  And of course my smokeshow wife would be inducted as the first winner in the Lifetime Achievement category. 

Where was I? 

Oh yeah.  I’m hoping that since the cultural tide seems to have turned against some of the excesses of woke sexual foolishness (mandatory pronouns, kowtowing to those with autogynephilia or gender dysmorphia, 57 genders fantasies, etc.), Pride cheerleading might be less ubiquitous and annoying this year.  

Speaking of “even educated fleas do it,” I am loving Trump’s beat-down of Harvard!  As a former academic, I’ve always wondered exactly how much the Ivy League in general hates Jews, free speech, and academic freedom.  And now it looks like we might be getting an answer: way more than $3 billion dollars’ worth!

When Trump first fired a shot across Harvard’s bow – telling them to start abiding by civil rights laws and crack down on Jew-hating freaks who have been disrupting their educational mission, or forfeit some grant money – I figured that the bureaucrats would make a token show of resistance and then sheepishly comply.  I thought that the horrific optics of standing with obnoxious jihadi brats and their tent-ifada would be enough to make Harvard submit, even without financial pressure.

But no!  The arrogant snoots dug their jack-booted heels in for Jew hatred uber alles, even after Trump threatened to take away more federal funds.  So then he said he’d be challenging their tax exempt status, and trying to block them from enrolling foreign students, many of whom are a coveted source of both bundles of cash and hatred of America and the West – two coveted resources for the extremist partisans running Harvard. 

Harvard got their noses even higher in the air – who would have thought that was even possible? – and filed suit against the president, rather than submit.  Of course, partisan left judges are coming out of the woodwork to block Trump (unexpectedly!), but it’s hard to see how they can win this one. 

American taxpayers can’t be forced to fund any university who defies federal laws in ways various and sundry, and no university is entitled to billions in funding automatically.  As a schadenfreude-tastic beneficial side effect, this case is fortuitously exposing the dark underbelly of academe, not just in its anti-Semitism, but in the way it has been decreasing admissions for  American students in favor of unvetted and often anti-American foreign students, and also systematically discriminating against conservative/traditional/pro-Western beliefs in faculty hiring and student admissions. 

Over the weekend CO reposted a tweet from Shabbos Kestenbaum (@ShabbosK) (whoever that is), pointing out that within 20 minutes of Harvard President Alan Garber sanctimoniously proclaiming that, “Harvard is not Harvard without its international students,” Garber awarded an honorary Harvard degree (I’m guessing in “Anti-Semitism Studies?”) to Elaine Kim, who supports efforts to “ban Israeli students from all universities.”

Ugh.  Kestenbaum summarizes the situation perfectly: “Israel is an American ally.  Harvard is not.” 

Yep.

I think Trump’s next move was a stroke of genius: he threatened to send $3 billion in grant money away from Harvard and to trade schools instead.  It’s probably an empty threat, but I like the idea, and it reinforces Trump’s appeal to working class voters: The Dems are for the rich elites getting grievance studies degrees at Harvard, and he’s for blue collar folks learning a trade.   

I’m hoping that if all else fails, and courts stop Trump from letting Harvard admit thousands of foreign students, he can at least give the leftists a taste of their own medicine, and deploy the “due process” gambit.  The State Department can say, “Okay, we’re prepared to admit foreign students.  But we have to give them very thorough, due-process vetting before giving them a student visa. And if that takes 4 or 5 semesters to get done, so be it.”

I feel bad for some innocent foreign students who get caught up in that process, but that’s the price that Harvard is imposing on them by defying the laws (and the taxpaying citizens) of the United States.  Because Ivy League administrators and faculty need to learn the real meaning of something they’ve been chanting for years: no one is above the law!

Finally, speaking of jihad enthusiasts, Hamas might be running out of Sinwars. 

You might remember that Yahya Sinwar was the leader of Hamas, until the IDF caught up with him last October.  He ran into an apartment building in Gaza, where an IDF drone filmed him throwing a stick at it (rumors that he threw like a girl are confirmed, and hilarious) before they assisted him in assuming rubble temperature. 

Well Yahya had a younger brother, and his name was Muhammad.  (Unexpectedly!)  He had helped plan the October 7th massacre, and he had taken his brother’s place as a Hamas leader.  And on Saturday, Israel announced that earlier in May, they had struck an underground compound near a hospital in southern Gaza, thus sending Muhammad to his eternal reward.

Which, if I understand justice in the afterlife correctly, involves an eternity of rectal pitch-forking. 

The Israeli defense minister with the most Israeli name ever (Israel Katz!) named the two most likely senior Hamas successors to the unlamented Sinwar brothers as Izz al-Din al-Haddad and Khalil al-Hayya, and warned them, “You are next in line.”

So if you’re keeping score at home, two Sinwars have been retired, the Katz is out of the bag, and the hyphenated Izz and Khalil are on deck.  If you want to see their near future, open Duckduckgo.com and search “MLB Pitcher Randy Johnson hits a bird.” 

And then picture a flying keffiyeh, instead of a cloud of feathers.

Hamas delenda est!