Author: martinsimpsonwriting

As a conservative, I’m a big fan of the federalist system, under which each of the various states serves as a “little laboratory” for testing various ways of living and self-governing.  In a country as large and a people as varied as ours, “one size fits all” usually doesn’t fit very many.

For example, some states have high tax rates, many regulations, strong public unions and near-mandatory public schools.  Most of the people who vote for and run those states believe that people need protection from businesses and each other, and that higher living standards are primarily caused by wise central planning, and that an elite group of experts can make better choices for common people than they can be trusted to make for themselves.

Other states choose the opposite course: lower taxes, less regulation, “right to work” rules that allow unionizing but not coercion by unions, and more flexible educational options (charter or magnet schools, private and/or religious schools, homeschooling) for parents.  People in those states believe that they can make most of their own decisions, and that elites are generally sufferers of CRIS (cranial-rectal inversion syndrome), and should mind their own business.

You can recognize, with admittedly a little over-simplification, the former states as blue states and the latter as red states.  Over the last 50 years – and accelerating markedly over the last 10-15 years – the results of each groups’ laboratory experiments have become clear.  The three biggest red states (FL, TX and TN) are improving on most economic and educational fronts, and the three biggest blue states (CA, NY, IL) are deteriorating.

The easiest way to judge the success of the two competing systems is to watch population movement.  People have voted with their feet, moving from blue to red states; CA, IL and NY each lost a congressional seat – and FL, TX and TN each gained one – after the last census.  

And there were wallets attached to all of those feet.  Which is why the biggest blue states have lost millions of financially productive citizens to the red states, with FL, TX and TN gaining tens of billions in taxable income in the last couple of years, and CA, NY and IL losing similar amounts.

In other words the “little laboratories” in the red states are clean spaces filled with people coming up with technical advances and innovative new products, services and ideas.

The laboratories in blue states are alternatively exploding, collapsing, or on fire, and the people staggering out of them have dazed expressions, soot-blackened faces and singed clothes and hair.

Nowhere has the divergence of these two governing visions been more stark than in the area of crime and punishment.  Generally speaking, leftists have seen crime as the result of large, impersonal social forces – capitalism, racism, toxic masculinity, Donald Trump – more than the individual, moral choices of people.  Conversely, conservatives acknowledge that humanity (and thus human systems) are deeply flawed, but insist that criminals are responsible for choosing to commit crimes.

The two philosophies produce wildly different punishment strategies.  Progressives generally go easier on criminals, offering them cashless bail, a plethora of diversion/counseling/probation options, shorter sentences and no death penalty.  Conservatives are the opposite.

Conservatives favor “three strikes and you’re out” sentences.  (And a foul ball counts as a strike.)  Liberals favor “forty-seven strikes and we think you may have a problem” sentences. 

If you kill someone in many blue states, the judges and justice systems agonize over how society has failed you.  If you kill someone in Texas or Florida, we kill you back. 

I’ve written a lot of “stupid criminal” stories in previous columns, and those usually have satisfying endings.  A thug breaks into a house and takes the living-room temperature challenge when the homeowner exercises her second amendment rights.  A would-be car jacker takes the asphalt temperature challenge when he tries to car-jack the wrong person.  A brainiac trying to steal a catalytic converter from under a car fails the “can you set up a jack that won’t fall?” challenge.  (The first paramedic to arrive thinks, “We would have started chest compressions, but his chest was plenty compressed already.”) 

Most of these stories take place in red states, where there is social encouragement for those who fight back against crime and criminals.  Those that happen in blue states or cities often end badly for the non-criminal.

When Austin Simon attacked an elderly bodega worker in NYC, the old man stabbed him in self-defense.  When Simon died – turns out he had a long criminal record and was out on parole after assaulting a cop (UNEXPECTEDLY!) – leftist jackass DA Alvin Bragg charged the old guy with murder.  (Only a huge public outcry forced him to drop the charges.)   

Similarly, heroic Marine Daniel Penny choked out a violent recidivist criminal who was threatening citizens on the NYC subway, and when the perp died, Penny was charged with murder and had his life ruined.  In Tim A-WOLz’s Minnesota, career criminal and woman-beating junkie George Floyd became a secular saint when a cop was accused of being too rough with him while he was in the midst of fatally overdosing.  

And you can’t even trust that criminals who are appropriately convicted and sentenced in blue states will stay in prison, where they belong. Consider the case of California pedophile Charles Mix, whose mugshot should be entitled, “Satan Needs a Haircut.” 

This waste of oxygen was 47 and living with a family in 2003 when he stole a car, kidnapped their five-year-old girl and spent 12 hours molesting and taking pictures of her before he was caught.  Even in CA, he was convicted and sentenced to 350 years to life in prison.  Which means that – by my rough, English-professor math – he could possibly be released when he’s 397 years old. 

Of course to conservatives like me, that’s not punishment enough.  We hear this and ask questions such as “Have we forgotten how to hang people by the neck until they’re dead?” or “Are all of our firing squad rifles broken?”  Or “Can anybody run down to the library and grab a book on the Middle Ages, so we can brush up on that ‘drawing-and-quartering’ process?”

But he did his child raping in a blue state, so he gets the benefit of progressive jurisprudence.  “Well, at least he’s going to die in prison,” you are saying to yourself.

But you haven’t been paying attention.  Because now he’s up for parole.

I would engage my Sam Kinison filter, but that many F-bombs in all caps are not fit for a classy, family-friendly column like this one.     

It seems that in 2014 CA began a warm-hearted policy called the “Elderly Parole Program,” wherein prisoners over 60 – no wait, they dropped that age to 50 in 2021! – can be paroled after serving 20 years, no matter how long their original sentence was. 

I’m not making that up.  The leftists who run CA think we should be compassionate to pedophiles and murderers if they are elderly 50-somethings!  

Let that sink in.  I’m a fine figure of a man (“and handsome too” – obscure Elvis Costello reference, check) and I like to think I’m not THAT far past the height of my powers.  And that evil creep is only 6 years older than me!  It’s a horrific defect in leftist thinking – and outrageously mis-placed compassion – that could allow someone like that to walk free.

The same thing is happening on a societal level all over the world.  The progressive sympathy for  illegal immigrants over law abiding citizens explains the sanctuary city madness, and the accompanying crime waves.   This week police sources in NYC reported that 75% of those arrested in Manhattan are illegals.

Meanwhile in Germany, the number of gang rapes has exploded, and the German government – in good, progressive fashion – is trying to suppress inconvenient truths about the perpetrators.  When two parliamentarians – described as “right-wing populists,” naturally – got some government data, it turned out that out of 155 identified suspected rapists, 84 were “auslanders” (foreigners), while 71 were German citizens. 

It’s bad enough that over half of your nation’s rapists were imported, but the entire truth is even worse.  Because when the “right wingers” checked records of the 71 “citizens’” first names, they found a whole lot of “Muhammeds,” “Bilals,” and “Ibrahims.”

When those names were factored in, a German newspaper concluded that “78% of all suspects [likely] had a migration background.” 

The left’s ideas about crime – what causes it, and what to do about it – have borne a bitter fruit.  The women of Germany (and throughout Europe), the residents of American sanctuary cities, and our country in general has paid a high price for those failed ideas.

Having said all that, I’ve got a lot of friends and colleagues who are lefties and/or vote Democrat, and most of them are good people, with good intentions.  But that is cold comfort, since their intentions don’t change the results of their policies. 

I’m reminded of a quote from the great Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, murdered by the Nazis just a month before WWII ended.  It’s a little long, but I think it’s worth quoting in its entirety, because it sums up our dilemma in this election, IMHO:

“Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless. Neither protests nor use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed…  For that reason, greater caution is called for when dealing with a stupid person than a malicious one.”

Hamas delenda est!

I hope everybody had a great Labor Day weekend.  Other than the Gator game (about which, let us never speak again), we had a good time.  In honor of the holiday, I did no labor, and thus produced no Monday column.

But now the holiday is over, and we’ve got just a little over two months until a crucial election, so it’s time to get back to work.  As disgusted as I am that Que Mala and A-WOLz, despite having zero qualifications, are in a very tight race, I am heartened that there are small signs that the tide is turning against them.

We all knew that Biden’s “Big Boy Interview” was rough.  But last week’s “Little Girl and her Emotional Support Weasel” performance was almost as bad, and confirmed why this un-Dynamic Duo have been running from interviews like Grandma Squanto Warren fleeing from the US Cavalry.  (#wemustneverstopmockingher)

Dana Bash did a terrible job, in that she asked the minimal amount of pointed questions that she had to, with minimal follow-ups.  For example, she tossed a slow one over the middle of plate with the perennial candidate question, “What would you do on Day 1 in office?”

And Que Mala did the rhetorical equivalent of swinging so early that she spun herself completely around, losing her balance and pitching forward in time to catch the pitch right in her 10-cent head, which made her stagger in a circle and let go of the bat.  As she landed on the plate, the bat landed on her head, and a crown of stars and chirping birds circled her head until she fell backwards, unconscious.

Am I exaggerating?  How dare you! 

Here is the first paragraph of her answer, verbatim: “Well, there are a number of things. I will tell you first and foremost one of my highest priorities is to do what we can to support and strengthen the middle class. When I look at the aspirations, the goals, the ambitions of the American people, I think that people are ready for a new way forward in a way that generations of Americans have been fueled by — by hope and by optimism.”

This was the FIRST QUESTION, and she was already running out the clock! 

Obviously there is no content here, partly because she is unusually dimwitted, but also because she got an “elite” education that rewards blather and obfuscation.  She has a law degree.  I spent 30 years teaching writing workshops for every discipline, and I know that this pattern is worst in law students. 

Because lawyers are trained to close every loophole, and often seem to be paid by the word, legal language is full of repetition and synonym pairings.  We find this contract null AND void; we require the defendant to cease AND desist; we write a last will AND testament; we require you to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.  Etc. 

But that kind of bloat creeps into all kinds of “official” speak.  Bureaucrats say “at the current time” instead of “now,” and “due to the fact that” instead of “because,” and “I was operating at that juncture with inaccurate facts,” instead of “I lied.”

Kamala’s got a terminal case of content-less linguistic bloat.  In her first paragraph she has three pairs of unnecessary synonyms (“first and foremost,” “support and strengthen,” and “hope and optimism”) and one three-banger (“the aspirations, the goals, the ambitions”), and in her last half-sentence she repeats “way” twice and “by” three times. 

Then she piles on another paragraph, which I’m not going to subject you to, because I love you. 

To Dana Bash’s credit, she followed that verbal miasma with, “So what would you do on day one?”

Kamala then excreted another two paragraphs of empty calories – including three “what we’re gonna do to” phrases (spoiler alert: they were all followed by promises as vague as a Bill Clinton wedding vow) – and one, lonely detail (a $6K child tax credit).

And everyone has already widely mocked her big support for “holding ourselves to deadlines around time.”  Which are the only kinds of deadlines that exist, unless you count deadlines around actual death.  As in, “If this moron gets elected, I’m going to hold myself to a deadline around giving myself a huge injection of pure, sweet heroin, and embracing sweet oblivion.”

Walz was just as bad, ducking every question, and lying shamelessly.  At one point he actually said, “I certainly own my mistakes when I make ‘em.” 

This was AFTER he blamed his years-long lying about his rank at retirement and “carrying a weapon in war” on his INCORRECT GRAMMAR!  You know, like when you use a singular verb with a plural subject, or when you put ‘I’ before ‘e’ including when following ‘c.’

Or when you claim to be an Admiral of the Seven Seas, and that you wiped out an entire battalion of Taliban killers with nothing but a coach’s whistle and a spork, from a gondola in Venice.   

Ugh.  Enough about these idiots.  Labor Day is over, we’re in the final stretch, and we need Trump to be disciplined and on the top of his game.  No more bad-mouthing Brian Kemp, or wandering into pro-choice talking points, or coming up with goofy, insulting nicknames.  (That’s CO Nation’s job!)

“Martin,” you’re probably saying about now, “if you’re so smart, why don’t you jump in to save the day with a bunch of brilliant advice for the Trump campaign?

I’m glad you asked.  And no, I’m not just wearing this cape because I’ve been told that I look quite dashing in it. Or because the Norwegian Goddess and I occasionally play a little cat-and-mouse game we call “Zorro and the Serving Wench.”

Perhaps I’ve said too much.  Also, where was I?

Oh yes.  This is my “saving the day” cape, and here’s my $.02 on what Trump should do:

I’d like to see him focus on a Gingrich-esque Contract with America, a short list of specific actions that he’s going to carry out as soon as he gets back in.  This would contrast nicely with Que Mala’s word salad when asked the “Day 1” question, and take the focus off of him (for the many independents who can’t stand him) and move it to his policies, which are popular. 

I know: Trump has already done some of this, though intermixed with many other topics, long discussions, and distractions.  But I’d love to see him boil things down to maybe half a dozen actions, and hammer them relentlessly. 

Here’s my first pass at a list, though your mileage may differ:     

1. Immigration:  I’ll immediately re-instate the “remain in Mexico” policy, and throw every available resource – beefed up border patrol, ICE and National Guard – to policing the border as we start building as much wall as we can as fast as we can.  I’ll also shut off the magnet for illegals: no more freebies (phones, housing, welfare cash, driver’s licenses), no legal jobs, no more catch and release. 

2. Deportation: We’re a compassionate people, but everyone who came here illegally has broken our laws, and cut in line in front of legal immigrants who came the right way, and they must go back to their home countries.  We’ll give everyone a grace period of around 2 months to clean up their affairs and self-deport. While that’s happening, we’ll focus on immediately arresting, jailing and deporting any illegal who has committed crimes in addition to illegal entry.  After the 2 months, we’ll be arresting every illegal we can find, taking biometric info from them, and deporting them with no chance for them to attempt to legally immigrate for at least 10 years.  We’ll prioritize recidivist criminals, but everyone’s got to go back home eventually, and then we’ll let the voters decide how many of the productive, cream of the crop that we’ll allow to legally immigrate.

3. Economy: We’re going to do more of what we did the first time, which created the best economy in 40 years: drill baby drill, frack baby frack, and continue to wisely cut regulations and bureaucracy.  (The federal Education Department is going, and so are the extra IRS agents Biden hired.)   We’re going to encourage the building of as many nuclear power plants as possible, and stop subsidizing solar and wind; if those industries can’t attract private funds b/c they look viable, we won’t continue to throw taxpayer money at them.  Also, my tax cuts that are set to expire next year are now in place for as long as a congressional bill can put them in place. 

4. Crime: We’re going to stop favoring criminals and start protecting citizens.  We’ll defend law-abiding peoples’ 2A rights, and enforce all existing gun laws against criminals who use guns in their crimes.  (If we need more prisons, we’ll build them.)  We’ll cut federal aid to any self-proclaimed sanctuary city: if you screw Americans and support criminals, you’ll do it on your own dime, and reap what you sow.  Also, no more double-standards on rioting and violent protests: everybody (left, right or center) who destroys property or attacks law enforcement is getting every punishment the law allows. (By the way, I’m going to have our lawyers take a fast-track look at the cases of every non-violent J6er with no previous criminal record, and if merited I’m going to have them pardoned and released immediately.  And if an unbiased coroner confirms that George Floyd died of an overdose as the original one did before being coerced, I’m pardoning Chauvin.  If you want to riot over that, we’re preparing jail cells for you.) 

5. Secure Voting: we’ll make it easy for every eligible American to vote and very hard to cheat, including ramping up investigation, prosecution and harsh sentences for everyone who cheats.  I’m putting Elon Musk in charge of assembling a team of tech geniuses to come up with the most fool-proof possible methods to ensure legally legitimate elections.  Whether that includes low-tech (paper ballots with verified signatures that are protected and kept for years) or high-tech strategies like biomedical voter identification (through retinal scans, fingerprints, etc.), we’ll vet and implement it all.  We’re also going to push for legislation – with an executive order in the meantime while we fast-track it to SCOTUS – mandating strict voter ID for all federal elections.  (We respect federalism and state rights, and we won’t try to force election for state officials to follow rational ID and clean voting procedures.  But the congress, Senate and presidency are all national offices that affect every American, and we will not allow corrupt state political machines to send people elected through fraud to national office that allow them power over citizens from the rest of the country.)     

6. Foreign Policy:  We’re going to reward our allies and punish our enemies. So we’re encouraging Israel to go Roman against Hamas, and we’re giving Taiwan as much as we can to arm up against China.  We’re going to sanction and impoverish the government of Iran, and use our exports of natural gas and oil to Europe to put Putin back in his corner, and China back in theirs.  We’re going to make an example of a few offenders – if one more Houthi missile or pirate bass boat comes anywhere near gulf shipping or Israel, we’re going to light the pirate coast up with napalm like in Apocalypse Now.  And if the American hostages in Gaza aren’t all released by the time I finish taking the oath of office, keffiyeh are going to roll. 

I can think of a few more – forced reform of universities (automatic expulsions of violent protestors/rioters, roll out the Florida method of killing DEI programs, etc.); stopping the transing of kids, bathrooms, and sports – but we want to keep it short and focused.

Trump could handle the branding.  Maybe call it “The Elite 8,” or a “New 10 Commandments.” 

I can hear him now.  “The old 10 Commandments were fine.  Moses, Jehovah, good guys, terrific guys.  And the burning bush, and the tablets?  We’re still talking about them, they got tremendous ratings.  Even in Egypt, where the fake Pharoah did everything he could to counter-program, but he couldn’t do it.  He couldn’t do it!

But these new commandments – I call them the Trump Commandments – they’re going to be fantastic.  Some say the best ever.  I mean, nobody is coveting their neighbor’s oxen any more, but you know what they’re doing?  They’re transing the kids!  So much transing, so terrible.  But not any more.  Not after the Trump Commandments.”    

Let me know what I missed, and how we can tighten this up and get it to someone who can get it to Trump.

Time to “cape up,” CO Nation!

Hamas delenda est!

Be forewarned: I got a little carried away in today’s column.  So if you dislike reading an extended dose of righteous anger and hilarious mockery, you might want to skip this one.  (But then – full disclosure – you’ll be dead to me!)

Speaking of how the Biden-Harris administration can screw up literally anything, let’s consider their record on military issues, starting with the anniversary of the fall of Afghanistan earlier this week, which provided a sharp reminder of the vast gulf between Biden-Harris-Walz and Trump-Vance.

Trump never served, but as president he intimidated potentially trouble-making world leaders like Putin, Xi and whatever weird beards were at the top of the jihadi heap at the time, and thus he presided over no foreign wars starting and drawing America into them. 

JD Vance joined the Marines and served honorably.  He was never in combat – though he was much closer to it than a certain tampon enthusiast I could name, and thus carried a rifle and a sidearm during at least part of his Marine journalist tour.  But he managed not to lie about that, or tell a bunch of self-aggrandizing tall tales about his service. 

Conversely, Biden and Que Mala never served, and although Chicom-admirer Walz did his non-combat duty in the Guard for 24 years, he also managed to leave the guard 2 years before his final commitment expired, and coincidentally shortly after being warned that his unit was going to be shipping off to the Middle East. 

And then he exaggerated and lied about his service.  He never carried a “weapon in war.” He was never any closer to Afghanistan than Venice, Italy – where Taliban terrorism killed the same number of Guardsmen as died in the small Illinois farm town where I grew up, i.e., zero.  And he did not retire as a command sergeant major, despite his assertions to the contrary over the last 18 years.

But that’s all ancient history.  More recently – as in, last week –Trump attended a wreath-laying in remembrance of the 13 US servicemen killed in Afghanistan under Biden’s watch, while Biden, Harris and Walz all avoided it. Biden and Harris released empty and meaningless statements.

But that’s all they could realistically do, politically speaking.  After their disastrous withdrawal, they couldn’t afford to show up there and mouth some hypocritical platitudes, not when the survivors’ families might pelt them with rocks and garbage, and deservedly so.

Biden had infamously performed a trifecta of stupid acts in the aftermath of the Afghanistan debacle that made everything somehow even worse: 1. He looked at his watch constantly when the bodies came back.  2 He insisted for weeks afterwards that the pull-out had gone swimmingly. 3 In the worst debate in history, he claimed that nobody had died on his watch.

Of course Que Mala behaved just as stupidly, proudly stating afterwards that she had been “the last one in the room with Biden” when he made his decision.  If that were true, Biden’s long-desired outcome was finally achieved: for at least a few moments, he really was the smartest person in the room.  (Hat tip to my old buddy Doug Olsen for that observation.)

I’m sure that the MSM – busy doing to her what she once did to Willie Brown – is in the process of memory-holing her moronic boasting.  I predict that something very close to the following paragraph will soon appear in a MSM column, if it has not already done so:   

“Well actually, the last person in the room was a janitor named Gus, who came in after Que Mala left, and woke Joe up from a nap.  And when Biden asked Gus what he thought about the decision, Gus said, “Que?”  Because he doesn’t speak English.  But Biden – because he has the hearing of an octogenarian, and the cognitive ability of a centenarian, and the self-awareness of a sea slug – thought that Gus had said, “Okay.”  And Biden went ahead with the plan.  So you can see how Kamala really had nothing to do with it.  Also she’s super joyful, and you’ll have to elect her to see what’s inside that pinata of cackle-icious joyfulness.”

But it’s hard to remember how imbecilic that whole mess really was, just as a military decision.  So let’s refresh our memory.

First, Biden wanted to rush the withdrawal so that it would correspond with the anniversary of 9/11.  Which makes less sense than an AOC press conference!  Why would he want to indelibly connect this humiliating retreat with the date when the goat-romancers over there first struck our nation and murdered thousands of our countrymen?  Because: peace through weakness, I guess?

Then he pulled out the troops first, and left the baggage train (i.e. non-combat staffers, Afghan allies, and military materiel) behind.  Which everyone since Hammurabi and Sun Tzu and Nancy Pelosi’s grandson’s schoolmate Harald Hardrada (1015-1066 AD) knows you do NOT do.  (Obscure battle of Hastings reference?  Check.)

We left literally tons of military equipment behind – worth over $7 billion! – for the Taliban.  You may remember that equipment from last week, when the Taliban paraded in it through the streets of their crappy little capital to celebrate Biden’s humiliation of the USA.

Biden flunkies in the MSM and Democrat party (but I repeat myself) tried to mock us when we said that we should have gotten all of that stuff out during our retreat.  They said, “Oh yeah?  What were we supposed to do?  Put dozens of tons of military hardware into a plane and fly it out?  Strap tanks on top of a helicopter?”

To which some of us said, “Yes.  Not the helicopter thing, you morons, but yes.  Because we have ginormous airplanes called C-130s that we use to carry all of that military stuff into and out of theatres all the time.”

And no, before you can ask, we’re not talking about Broadway theatres, with which all of you Dylan Mulvaney types are so familiar.  We mean theatres of war, which is a real term from military history and lingo.  Which none of you know anything about, because the only war you’ve ever been involved in is the war on pronouns and common sense.

Anyway, when we go to war in a hellhole like Afghanistan, we don’t usually drive our tanks there on dirt paths through the mountains.  We fly them in inside C130s.  And before you can ask how that works, let me put it in terms national Democrat leaders can understand:

When a C130 and a battle tank love each other very much – even though they both identify as male – the C130 will lower a ramp from its nether regions, and the tank will enter through that opening.  Then later on, after “landing,” it will pull out of that same opening.  And before you can say it, we know: the heart wants what it wants, and who are we to judge?

Anyway, that’s how we could have gotten all of that stuff out, saving the taxpayers billions of dollars and preventing the barbarian jihadis from getting the means to slaughter even more people. 

“That sounds like something you just made up,” said the MSM.  “Though the tank thing going in and out back there sounds intriguing to us.  But if those C-130s really exist, we’re sure that it’s not like we had any of them in Afghanistan, so they could have been used to bring that stuff out.”

To which we said, “No, no.  We had four C-130s there – along with 207 other aircraft! – and we could have flown in more, and gotten everything out.  But instead, we left all of our expensive military weaponry there, alongside the empty planes that we could have used to fly it all out.”

“Oh come on,” the MSM said.  “There’s no way we would do that.  That would be the stupidest thing ever done in the history of stupid things.”

Yes.  Yes it would.  And it was.  And you incompetents really should have looked into reporting on that.  But you were too busy playing C-130 to the Biden administration’s battle tank, if you know what I mean.   

But it’s worse than that.  Because we had Bagram air force base, which was in a strategically defensible position, outside of Kabul.  Since we had the whip hand, militarily speaking, we could have told the Taliban that we were going to keep that base – which we spent billions on, and which was a very useful place for us to maintain planes that could have given us surveillance capability and quick-response times in the region. 

The Taliban wouldn’t have liked that.  But since they were still armed with only smalls arms and some RPGs, and we hadn’t yet given them billions-worth of heavy weaponry, we could have sat back and killed them with ease if they ever tried to mount attacks on Bagram.

But no.  Biden decided to give up Bagram, and voluntarily moved our staging efforts into the middle of Kabul, at the Mazar-i-Sharif Airport.  (My Afghan is a little rusty, but I’m pretty sure that translates as, “super vulnerable airport.”) So once Biden had pulled most of our soldiers out and staged our final withdrawal from the impossible-to-defend airport, a super-peaceful Muslim suicide bomber slaughtered dozens of Afghan civilians and 13 American soldiers at Abbey Gate.

UNEXPECTEDLY!

Ugh.  It still makes me sick to think about it. 

But Biden and Harris were not done yet.  Because they’ve brought their same strategic genius to Israel.  Immediately after 10/7, they started pressuring Israel to appease Hamas, and beg them for a cease fire.  Their argument has been that Israel can never achieve peace by killing terrorists, and that the only smart path forward is for Israel to do for the Hamas terrorists what Que Mala did for Willie Brown. 

Thus they’ve done everything they can to encourage Hamas and impede Israel’s war effort.  They’ve been putting out constant stories and op-eds claiming that Israel can never achieve their anti-Hamas goals.

Annnndddd… Israel is steadily achieving their anti-Hamas goals, despite the best efforts of the Bumbler and the Cackler.

Consider these facts:

Within two weeks of October 7^th, Israel gave the “ol’ ballistic Shalom” to Hamas’ air operations commander Murad Abu Mura, head of the Nukhba commando unit Ali Qadhi, Hamas chief “negotiator” Osama Mazini, al-Qassam brigade’s military intelligence chief Ayman Nofal, and battalion commander Ibrahim Biari. 

Within the last six weeks they put down big shots Mohammed Deif in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, and Fuad Shukr in Beirut.  And in just the last month, Hezbollah missile commander Hussein Ali Hussein and Al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade big shot Khalis al-Maqdah both went to the big Goat Brothel in the Sky. 

Not to mention the fact that al-Ghoul is al-gone, and the jihadi who decided to take a motorcycle ride in Drone Alley ended up like Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda at the end of Easy Rider.  

And it’s not just the head honchos who are achieving fruit-fly-like life spans.  The IDF has dropped the kosher kaboom on dozens of terrorist grunts in Rafah (40 killed), Khan Younis (a handful took the rubble nap, along with scores of stored explosives and rocket launchers), and a bomb-laying team in central Gaza who tried to plant explosives and experienced premature detonation.

Israel has also recovered the bodies of 6 murdered hostages from Khan Younis, and rescued a Bedouin Muslim hostage in central Gaza, and they’ve additionally discovered and destroyed more than 150 terror tunnels along the Egypt-Gaza border, turning many terrorists into underground hummus puddles in the process.

Oh, and they defeated the Rafah Brigade near Egypt, and launched a massive pre-emptive strike that took out hundreds of Hezbollah missiles and their launchers in Lebanon, shortly before they were to be fired.

Within just the last day, a major Israeli operation in the West Bank has produced mass arrests of terrorists, along with the killing of 5 top Hamas commanders, including Mohamed Jaber (who won’t be jabbering any more) in a mosque. (Because that’s where really devout religious types like to stage their terrorist activities.) 

The IDF also pursued jihadis in running gun battles that looked like something out of a John Wick sequel.  (“Itzak Wick 5: This Time It’s Biblical!”)

Meanwhile, on the same day in Gaza, the IDF struck more than 40 targets with drones, killing dozens of gunmen, and Islamic Jihad commander Osama Gadallah.  (How many “Osamas” do those creeps have?  Answer: far fewer than the IDF has drones.)   

Coincidentally, and to Biden-Harris’ chagrin, the noose is tightening around Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who is losing support from other terror groups in Gaza, and has taken to dressing like a woman in order to evade capture.  (Or possibly because he’s a member of our “Admiral” Richard/Rachel Levine fan club.) (Although considering Richard’s last name, probably not.)  He’s also surrounded himself with 22 handcuffed hostages as human shields.

Because he’s such a brave warrior. 

If this keeps up, if you want to see rabid America-hating jihadi anti-Semites a couple of months from now, you’ll have to go to Dearborn, Michigan or the Democrat congressional caucus!    

But hey, lest you think that Biden and Harris have not got their priorities right when it comes to all things military, you’ll be glad to know that last month, Biden’s Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced an important investigation on which the army will be spending a lot of manpower and taxpayer dollars. 

They’re going to focus on – I Schiff you not – whether they can revoke the Medals of Honor awarded to US soldiers in a famous battle.  You may be thinking, “Will any of those soldiers lose rank, or possibly their pensions, if this happens?”

But you can rest easy about that. Because the battle in question… let me engage my Sam Kinison filter here… HAPPENED 134 YEARS AGO!  OH!  OHHHHHHH!

I’m not making that up.  They’re investigating whether to strip medals away from long-dead cavalry soldiers who fought the Sioux at Wounded Knee in December of 1890! 

Sure, nobody today would defend what went on then; it was more of a massacre than a battle.  But today, when evil fighters are causing trouble all over the world and our armed services are missing recruitment goals because our anti-male and anti-military lunatic leadership are more concerned about DEI than IEDs or WMD, should we be prioritizing getting to the bottom of a cavalry fight between long-dead cowboys and Indians? 

Sorry. I meant, “…long-dead Eurocentric aggressors and saintly environmentalist Native Americans.”

“Yes!” say our current leaders.  In the words of an “unnamed senior defense official” – I swear to you, I am not making this up, “It’s never too late to do what’s right.”

Unless the wrongs in question were done by Cankles McPantsuit in Benghazi 12 years ago, or by Biden-Harris in Afghanistan three years ago, or by Stolen Valor Walz a few weeks ago in Chicago.  THEN it’s far, FAR too late to do what’s right.      

Rumors that the current investigation was initiated by Grandma Squanto Warren – still on the warpath because of her great-great-grandparents who died at Wounded Knee – have not been confirmed.

#wemustneverstopmockingher

Have a great weekend everybody, and don’t forget…

Hamas delenda est!

I’m starting out this week in a contemplative mood, partly because of one of the two books I finished this weekend.  One is a thriller by Nick Petrie, The Price You Pay.  If you like Ben Coes and Lee Child novels, you’ll like Petrie’s.

The other one is a biography of Jefferson by Jon Meacham, called The Art of Power.  One of the great things about reading books about other historical periods is that when you’re boxed into your own, claustrophobic, immediate culture – which I am, and especially so during the final stretch of an election – they get you out of your own head, and give you some perspective.

The Jefferson book did that for me, and I thought I’d share a few thoughts about it, before I go right back to our own claustrophobic, immediate culture at the end of this column. 

I’ve read a lot about Jefferson and the Founders, but most of it was a while ago, and it’s disheartening to realize how much I’ve forgotten. The clearest facts that I remembered about him are his genius and his motor; he had such a wide range of interests, and seemed capable of excelling at anything he put his hand to.  He designed all kinds of implements and furniture, and his own grave marker, on which he listed his writing of a Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom and the Declaration of Independence, and his founding of the University of Virginia. 

He had me at “author of the Declaration of Independence.”  Quill drop.

If that wasn’t enough, after the British burned much of DC in the War of 1812, Jefferson’s personal library of over 6000 books formed the basis of the new Library of Congress. 

(By comparison, I’ve written 5 unpublished novels, a dissertation, 10 published short stories, and literally hundreds of running jokes about how Nancy Pelosi is a mummy, and Liz Warren is translucently white.  So I feel like Jefferson and I are kindred spirits, really.) 

And yet, he’s also a reminder of what a mixed bag we fallen humans are, even the greatest among us.  For such a wise man, he could be foolish with money, and at his death he owed between $1-2 million in 2012 dollars, forcing the posthumous sale of his beloved Monticello.  For such a morally high-minded man, as a young bachelor he also pursued and had an affair with one of his best friend’s wives, and as an adult he famously had sex and children with at least one of his slaves, Sally Hemmings.

Oh yeah: he owned slaves, and he didn’t free any of them during his lifetime.  At his death he freed the children he’d sired by Hemmings, but not the rest.

Those facts are incomprehensible to us now, and morally offensive.  And they should be.  But since they’ve been dwelled on exhaustively by too many America-hating educrats in recent decades, too many students can’t rightly see, judge or appreciate the greatness of the man (and the Founders, and our country).  Too many schools teach that what we shared with every great empire/nation in human history until the 1830s – slavery – was unique to (and uniquely terrible in) America, while denigrating or ignoring our uniquely great founding principles and positive impact on the world.

All generations suffer from what C. S. Lewis called “chronological snobbery,” a tendency to accept our current values and harshly judge those of earlier generations.  So while we pat ourselves on the back for acknowledging the evils of slavery or sexism, what do you think people a century or two from now will think when they look back on our current acceptance of transgender ideology and the child mutilation and harm that accompanies it, or socialism and its 100 million plus body count (so far), or violent terrorism when practiced by trendy minorities, or abortion up until the moment of birth?

(A good corrective to chronological snobbery comes from Tolstoy: “Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.”)

In a related vein, Jefferson’s world provides a useful reminder of how many political “crises” that loom so large in the moment will be utterly forgotten in a very short time.  I find it comforting to think that, God willing, no one will be able to remember Tampon Tim Walz in 8 years.  (Quick, who was Hillary’s running mate in 2016?  See what I mean?)

I found the chapters about Jefferson’s retirement to be the most poignant, perhaps because I’m at that stage of life myself.  He was relieved to be out of the sturm und drang of politics, and happily occupied himself with writing and working on various projects, and on my best days I feel that way too. 

After bitter political feuding with John Adams kept the second and third presidents estranged from each other for over a decade, it took only one fond letter from Adams for Jefferson to respond warmly and renew a friendship and correspondence that lasted until their deaths.

And in a coincidence of history, both men died on the same day.  On July 3^rd, 1826, Jefferson was in and out of consciousness, but wanted to survive to see the 50^th anniversary of the first Independence Day.  That night, he asked those around him several times whether it was the Fourth yet. 

He made it, dying at age 83, at Monticello on the Fourth of July.  John Adams, 90, died the same day in Quincy, Massachusetts.  His last words were, “Jefferson still survives,” even though Jefferson had passed five hours earlier.

Okay, that’s a lot of high-minded talk from a humble bonehead like myself.  So let me give you all the bends by thrusting you back into our current madness for the rest of this column.

It’s been a month since Que Mala has been a presidential candidate/nominee, and she still has not had a “big girl” press conference or taken a single legitimate question.  Of the five major policy decisions she’s made, four them have been disastrous – picking Tim Walz, promising price controls for groceries, proposing to tax unrealized capital gains, and offering $25K of taxpayer money to people who can’t afford a house – and the other one she shamelessly stole from Trump.

I don’t like the “no taxes on tips” idea, because I’m a conservative, and don’t like the government using double standards to pick winners and create losers.  But that is by far the least bad of Kamala’s first five moves, and she should still get lambasted for the blatant theft. 

We can’t let this cackling goon anywhere near the White House!

Speaking of which, I saw some speculation that when Imhotep Pelosi walked out for her speech at the DNC, some toilet paper fell out of her pants leg.  While this isn’t technically a fact check, I’m pretty sure we all know that that was some burial wrapping. 

#Pelosi-D,ValleyoftheKings

Finally, a violent jackass disrupted a “diversity festival” in Solingen, Germany on Saturday, stabbing over a dozen people and killing three. 

Pop Quiz:  Was the mass stabber screaming…

A. “Free Minds, Free Speech, Free Markets!”

B. “A Mighty Fortress is our God!”

C. “MAGA!” or

D. “Allahu Akbar!”

If you get this wrong, you must immediately turn in your Cautious Optimism membership card.

Also, the Germans seem pretty upset about Abdul al-Stabbington.  But they threw a diversity festival, and you can’t say Jihadi the Ripper didn’t bring diversity, can you?

As a nod to my German heritage on my mom’s side, I’d like to humbly suggest a new title for your next festival: “Deutschland Uber Diversity”

I predict fewer stabbings with that one.

Hamas delenda est!

After I heroically watched most of the DNC on Monday night so you didn’t have to – you’re welcome – I must confess that I wasn’t able to watch large amounts of the next three nights.  Because I am just one man.

One man with a heart as big as the great outdoors, and the strength of ten men, and also the toughness of a $2 steak.  But just like Achilles, I have a weakness: a tragically sensitive gag reflex that kept me from prolonged exposure to that televised train wreck.

Okay, I know.  I said “gag reflex.”  While I’m at it, I also noticed that Que Mala has been tight-lipped about policy this week, and that in her goofy speech in Milwaukee she sounded like she might have been drinking something.  Oh, and on Monday night she gave lip service to what a great president Joe Biden has been.

I think I’ve teed that up sufficiently.  So why don’t we just get this over with.  Everybody take a minute and make your own Willie Brown jokes.  I’ll wait.

…

Okay, I hope we’ve all gotten that out of our system.  We’ve seen her swing.  We know her swing.  So let’s not act like children, people.   

While I wasn’t able to stomach much of the convention (stop it!), I did watch some coverage and catch as many snippets as I could stand.  And I think I saw enough to give you my selection of the lowlights of the Democrats’ convention:

1.The entire first night: Joe screamed and slurred his way through a humiliating curtain call, telling all the old and debunked lies and insisting that he is not angry or bitter.  And the other big speakers were Cankles McPantsuit – who delighted the partisans while scaring the crows – and sleazy Jamie “Dick” Raskin.

2. J.B. “the Hutt” Pritzker – Illinois Governor and former actor in the early 90’s cop show “Jake and the Fatman” (Joe Penny played “Jake”) – showed up on Tuesday night, and his appearance was perfect. 

His speech followed Bernie Sanders, which was an odd scheduling choice.  A professional useless person who has never made an honest dime in his life, Sanders used his time to lambaste evil billionaires.

Unexpectedly!

Then Pritzker took the stage – and after Hillary’s appearance the night before, the stage groaned, “No mas!” – and… wait for it… bragged about being an “actual billionaire!” You can’t make this up. 

For those of you who are blessed to not know who Pritzker is, he “earned” his billions the old fashioned way: mommy and daddy gave his wealth to him.  His ancestors started the family fortune in the late 19th century in pharmaceuticals, expanding in the late 20th century into hotels and other ventures.  (Rumors that they also profited from advertising – including painting “Goodyear” on JB and floating him over sporting events – have not been confirmed.)

He’s also, like so many tax-raising leftists, a sleazy tax dodger.  While doing everything he could to tax the crap out of the beleaguered Illinois residents who remain there – CO and I escaped, so suck it, Pritzker! – he pulled a cheap stunt to save himself $5 million of appraised value on his second mansion on Chicago’s wealthy Gold Coast district.

That’s right: his SECOND mansion. Because a guy that size isn’t fitting in just one mansion.  Anyway, the mansions are right next to each other, so JB pulled the toilets out of the second mansion, which made it technically “uninhabitable,” and deprived the city of hundreds of thousands of tax dollars.  Meanwhile, he could still trundle next door and enjoy waddling through the mansion whenever he wanted, tax free.

So just like everything else (fact check: everything but one thing) about the guy, his hypocrisy is colossal!  

3. Barack’s Tuesday speech, which featured what felt like hours of mean-spirited insults and blasting Republicans and Trump voters as the worst kind of people possible… followed by a call for unity in the country!  Compared to Biden’s and Que Mala’s horrible speaking skills, Obama’s superficial glibness gave him a sheen of competence.  But what a small and mean-spirited man he is.

4. Michelle’s speech, in which… wait for it… she played the race card.  Unexpectedly!  I hate bogus charges of racism.  So as you can imagine, I am not fond of that scowling wookie.

She also played the class card, in the supremely hypocritical way that only a social justice leftist can.  She told the story of her mom and dad, who “didn’t aspire to be wealthy.  In fact, they were suspicious of folks who took more than they needed.” 

Gglklgkkkkchuk.

Sorry. Choked on my own bile there for a minute.

So let’s get this right.  Michelle was raised to NOT aspire to wealth, and to look down on anyone who took more than they needed? 

Beeyotch, you’re worth $70 million dollars!  And I guess everyone “needs” a multimillion dollar Netflix deal, right?

Oh yeah, and she lives in a 6 bedroom/6 bathroom mansion in Chicago.

Oops, except that she doesn’t live there anymore.  But she still has it.  Because she NEEDS it.  But in 2017 she and hubby bought a sorely needed 8200-square-foot Tudor mansion – I know: that’s 3 Pritzkers! – with 8 bedrooms and 9.5 bathrooms in a very rich section of DC.

Two years later, sick of being cooped up in the 3-Pritzker-sized DC hovel, the Obamas dropped millions more on 30 ocean-front acres and a 6900 s.f. mansion (7 bedrooms, 8.5 baths) on Martha’s Vineyard.  And they’re rumored to be closing soon on another gigantic mansion, this one in Hawaii.

Got all that?  This sanctimonious fraud just lectured the nation about the virtues of not acquiring more than you need, while she owns 20,000+ square feet of luxury housing, where she can lay her head and Sasquatchian frame down to sleep in any of 21 bedrooms, and relieve herself in any of 24 bathrooms.

And she NEEDS every damn one of them!

Her parents are lucky that they’re both dead, so they didn’t have to see how completely their daughter has rejected the lessons about humility and frugality that they tried in vain to teach her.

5. Epic self-beclowning by the protestors.  A giant IUD, addled women dressing up like birth control pills, beta males getting unnecessary vasectomies, and an RV that served as an abortuary on wheels.  And that’s not to mention the violence and screams of – literally – “We want Hamas to win!”  That’s right: the Democrat brainiacs were determined to put out a life-affirming message of “JOY!” 

And the best they could come up with was hating half of your countrymen, cheering for jihadi terrorists, sterilizing their already mostly sterile males, and killing babies in the parking lot. 

Well done, comrades!

6. Tim Walz.  Ugh.  He’s a socialist wolf in a Midwestern dad’s khakis, and every word he said was a lie, including “and” and “the” (hat tip to Mary McCarthy).  His life story is as trustworthy as Bill Clinton’s pillow talk, and his governance was a horror show. And to top it all off, he mocked JD Vance for having risen above his deprived hillbilly childhood and making something of himself!

Really, Timmy?  That’s what you’ve got? JD joined the Marines, came back and crushed it at Ohio State and Yale, then had some success in business and wrote a bestselling memoir, so that means he’s a fake hillbilly?

No, that makes him the most successful hillbilly in history, you phony creep!

(I mean except for me.  Because I earned the title “Dr. Hilarious Genius,” and landed my smokeshow of a wife and a regular column writing for the creme de la creme at Cautious Optimism.)

7. Bill Clinton.  When I was flipping through the channels and caught sight of him, I thought that Jimmy Carter was somehow making an appearance at the DNC.  Because, yikes!  He does not look good.  And he sounds as bad as he looks.

That guy is the same age as Trump!  But if you were married to CAW CAW, your life force would have been drained from you, too.  And it doesn’t help that his blood type is “STD-positive.”    

I tried to listen to him, but… NOPE.

8. Finally, Que Mala.  She was supposed to be the headliner, but—

All right, stop snickering back there!  I swear, if you don’t straighten up I’m going to turn this column around and go straight back home!

I’m serious! 

Okay fine.  She blew it, is that what you wanted to hear? 

Of course the content was negligible; the parts that weren’t banal pap were a cavalcade of lies.  And her delivery!  Good lord, she manages to combine the worst traits of many people who have very bad traits.

The nasally whine of Fran Drescher.  The stiff gestures of the old Lost in Space robot.  The intellectual heft of AOC.  The charmlessness of Hillary.  The likeability of Hillary.  And the authenticity of Hillary. 

Like all well-raised and reasonable people, I was prepared to dislike this dumpster fire of a convention.  But holy cats, did they exceed my expectations! 

And yes, I guess we all need to act like children just a little bit longer.  Because the nominee’s speech on the final night is supposed to be the climax of a convention.

But what Que Mala did on Thursday night was a textbook anti-climax. 

And we’ve got a little more than 2 months to rally and fight and stop these imbeciles from getting back into the White House!     

Hamas delenda est!

This won’t be a full column – I’ll still have my usual Friday one out tomorrow.  But I want to comment on this before it’s older news that it already is.

Regular readers know that I was (and am) a DeSantis guy, and that I’ve had a love/hate relationship with Trump.  We won’t re-hash that old ground now, but suffice it to say that as much as I liked most of his presidency and much of his skill set, he drives me crazy with his undisciplined, childish and self-harming verbal excesses.    

But when he’s good, he can be amazing!  He’s got a great instinct for counter-punching, and I saw an excellent example of that from him on Tuesday.

He was doing a Q&A after a press conference in Howell, Michigan.  (An act which Que Mala has avoided like the plague!)

When the Harris goat-rodeo corps found out he was going to Howell, they put out a statement about how Howell, MI is somehow a hotbed of KKK influence in these United States, and so obviously Trump is going there because he’s a vicious racist. 

Sorry, that should have been “the Harris campaign,” not goat-rodeo corps. 

Or should it?

Anyway, Fox reporter Aishah Hasnie asked him about Que Mala’s charge that appearing in Howell is inherent racist.  (By the way, many on our side have lambasted Hasnie and the question as typical leftist-hack dishonest reporting.  But my impression of her is that that she’s not a hack, and I think this kind of question is sometimes legitimate: “Your opponents say this about what you’re doing. How do you respond?”)

There are lots of good answers to such a stupid charge, and many of them could be quite verbose, and thus open to a rambling Trump response.

In fact, when I first heard that charge, something didn’t add up for me: Could it be true that a racist organization with its origin in the Democrat deep South right after the Civil War somehow had a vibrant outpost in far-north Michigan, 160 years later? 

So I researched it, and found the following, which Trump could easily have gotten into, saying something like this to Hasnie:

“Okay, let’s have a history lesson about the KKK.  Do you know in what political party it was formed, and who the primary founders were?  The answer is the Democrat party, and that it was started by 6 ex-confederate soldiers, all Democrats, in Pulaski, TN.   Do you know who the first KKK grand wizard was?  Democrat and ex-Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest.

Do you know what Howell’s supposed KKK connections refers to?  A day in 1994 when one local idiot racist held a KKK rally that klan members from outside the community attended. 

How many thousands of klansmen attended, and how much violence and destruction did they cause to the community?  They didn’t cause any destruction; they played loud music from a boombox, waved Confederate flags, and yelled like morons for a while. 

How did such a huge mob of mouth-breathers do so little damage?  Because they weren’t a huge mob.  And even though police forces around the country have traditionally had trouble coming up with reliable estimates of crowd sizes, this one was simple.

Because, and I am not making this up, the horde of white racists attending this high-profile rally was… wait for it… ‘less than a dozen.’” 

So yes, Trump could have done all that, and blasted the reporter with actual facts that demonstrated that the MSM’s “Trump goes to racist-land” story was a despicable lie.

And 38 seconds after he was done, the first MSM story would appear, with the headline, “Trump Excuses KKK Rally,” or “Trump on KKK Rally: ‘No Big Deal’”

Instead, Trump was at his best.  He just walked to microphone and said, “Who was here in 2021?”  Hasnie answered, “Joe Biden.”  And Trump laughed and pointed at her and said, “Thank you!”  And then walked away.

Because the mic he spoke into was on a stand, he couldn’t drop it.  And yet somehow he did.

That’s great Trump!  He sees an opening, he strikes with a lightning-fast jab like the young Thomas Hearns (he was the “Motor City Cobra,” for those of you who think I can’t pull a 40-year-old, geographically appropriate boxing reference out of my conical wizard hat), and then walks away in slow motion, as the building behind him explodes. 

And everybody knows that Que Mala couldn’t have done that on her best day. 

Her answer would have started, in a nasally drone, “Well, racism, in terms of its significance in our country, has a great significance in our country…”  Followed by an entire buffet of word salad, ending in a bone-chilling cackle, and then a whimper. 

What can we take away from this? 

Two things we already knew:  Brevity is the soul of wit. 

And – pardon my French, as we used to say in the late 1800s – the MSM is the soul of s**t.   

More, please, Mr. Trump.  More of this!

Coming tomorrow: my take on the lowest of the low points of the DNC

Hamas delenda est!

I’ve never written back-to-back daily columns before, but I just finished watching big, painful chunks of the first night of the DNC, and I feel like I have to share a few thoughts, if for no other reason than to purge myself of these disturbing sights and sounds. 

First, I love the way Chicago prepared for the convention: by putting up a bunch of fencing and walls to keep the super-peaceful pro-Hamas ghouls from wreaking havoc too close to the convention center.  Because we all know that building walls is really essential…unless it’s to keep literally millions of illegals from flooding across our border.

Then it’s racist. 

They also closed down businesses, boarded up storefronts, and marshalled a big police presence that they somehow never manage to deploy to prevent the four-dozen average weekend shootings in the City of the Hunched Shoulders. 

We do the same kind of thing in Florida from time to time.  But we do that in the face of a looming natural disaster, like a Cat 4 hurricane.

Let that sink in.  In the bluest of cities, the common people know how to react to a huge crowd of leftists descending on their town: as if it were the manifestation of the wrath of an angry God – or, depending on your worldview, a pitiless assault by the blind, unreasoning forces of a Nature that is everywhere red in tooth and claw.

Early in the evening a bunch of little-known speakers made up the under-card of presenters.  I saw AOC take the stage, and listened as she said that, “Six years ago I was taking omelette orders in NYC.” 

And all I could think about was those poor diners, confused and worried as AOC dropped off their orders.  Thinking things like, “Shouldn’t there be cheese in this?” and “I ordered mushrooms in mine, but I got a bottle cap and a lemon twist.” 

And, “Is there supposed to be pink fiberglass insulation in a Denver omelette?”

Second, speaking of natural disasters, I did not know who their first big-name speaker was going to be.  But given that the substance-less theme of their convention is supposed to be joy and good vibes, I did not expect it would be the most aggrieved woman outside the cast of the View, Hillary Clinton!

But then she was introduced – and they might as well have had the fight announcer guy from Vegas, with a hyped-up cry of, “Llllllet’s get ready to GRUUUMMMMBLE!!!” – the arena was filled with the sound of thundering hoofbeats.  I mean, she was really trampling out the backstage where the grapes of wrath are stored!

And then she trundled out to raucous and sustained applause before rolling out a mixture of glittering banalities about Biden, Harris and Tampon Tim, and angry swipes at the bad orange man who sent her cankling off to Chappaqua in 2016.  Of course she made a big deal out of the 34 felony convictions that the corrupt “justice” system in NY pinned on Trump, and I couldn’t tell whether she really believed her own b.s. or not.

The loathsome Jamie Raskin followed her, with an equally bitter, dishonest and unhinged rant.  All you have to know about Raskin is that he voted against certifying the 2016 election, and said that Trump should be impeached as soon as he took office on a ridiculous “emoluments” argument. 

Annnnnnnndddddd… then he led the House show trial that impeached Trump for objecting to the 2020 election rigging. 

(Oddly enough, many people call Raskin “Dick,” even though his name is not Richard.)

Of course, the “star” of the night was the mortal remains of Joe Biden, who was the center of the most bizarre performance by an assassinated leader that has ever happened.

Say what you want about the politicians who murdered Julius Caesar, but at least they imbued his death with a little dignity.  They staged their crime during a respectable event – a meeting of the Senate – in a dignified location – the Theatre of Pompey in Rome – and they gave him a quick death.   

By comparison, the Democrats may as well have beaten old Joe with a lead pipe in a latrine, but only badly enough to mortally wound him.  Then they helped him to his feet, gave him just enough pain meds to keep him alive, and then shoved him out on stage to go through one more ritual humiliation. 

I mean, they pushed his speech back out of prime time, so it wouldn’t end until after midnight, knowing that he’s a guy who goes to bed at 8:30, and isn’t even close to sharp after the early bird special at Denny’s ends at 4:45. 

Of course he gave us more of the usual, slurring, mumbling, then SCREAMING and GESTURING.  Then slurring some more.

He actually brought up – for what feels like the four-hundredth time – the long-debunked lie that Trump called neo-Nazis “fine people.”  Because at long last, senator, he has no sense of dignity.  Or of coherence.  Or of bowel control. 

It was a sad denouement to a skeevy career, and perfectly emblematic of the moral rot in the Democrat party.

It struck me as a perverse inversion of speeches given by much-feared dictators like Stalin or Saddam at the height of their powers.  In those cases, the tyrant came out to thunderous applause, and then basked in it for literally half an hour or more, the length and fervor of the response being commensurate with the abject terror of their audience, who knew that the first person to stop applauding would be led off to torture and death.

In Biden’s case, the extended cheers and applause were equally fraudulent, as were all of the signs and chants proclaiming, “We love you Joe!”  But the cheering goons weren’t afraid of him; they were contemptuous. 

After weeks of trashing him behind his back and mercilessly increasing the pressure on him until he was forced to resign, they condescended to cheer themselves hoarse in a way so transparently false as to be galling to its object.  

Assuming Biden was aware of his surroundings, I can’t think of a more depressing and humiliating fate: to be surrounded by an army of Cassius and Brutus clones in your final moments on the political stage, watching and listening to them sing your praises, while they hold the bloody knives that they’ve mortally wounded you with, behind their backs.

And that’s only night one!   

Hamas delenda est!

I’m in a better mood than I was on Friday, only partly because of spending a weekend with the family and relaxing.  The best way to deal with my increasing disgust with the MSM turned out to be watching a bunch of videos of people’s surprise twin announcements. (Somehow I got there after starting out with Cheap Trick and other 70s and 80s music).

From there I went to videos of grandparents and other relatives finding out that a new baby was named after them, and then to people adopting the kids they’d helped to raise.  After all of that life-affirming, wholesome goodness, the sleazy lying of our feckless journalists faded into insignificance.

It also helped that it’s starting to feel like the Kamala honeymoon might be fading.  I know the MSM will keep tirelessly propagandizing for her and Walz, but I’m seeing more evidence that even they don’t have enough lipstick for this pig, metaphorically speaking.

(And no, that wasn’t a veiled Willie Brown reference.  To quote Trump during the golfing segment of his debate with the late Joe Biden, “Let’s not act like children.”)

It was nice to see even a few MSM outlets point out that Kamala’s economic plan – creating price controls, going after businesses for “price gouging,” and giving away $25K to help anyone who can’t afford a house to get a house – are impractical schemes that won’t work.

By the way, if you haven’t read the CO Economics Correspondent’s piece on the disastrous history of price controls from over the weekend, scroll back and find it, because it’s great.  He zips through 4000 years of history, demonstrating that Que Mala’s ideas would bring the same kind of economic dysfunction as when Hammurabi and Diocletian tried them.

Which is aggravating, because Kamala had only to ask Imhotep Pelosi – who went to high school with Hammurabi – about the topic.  In fact, Pelosi can remember when you get 30 ka of corn for 2 gerah!

(That joke would have killed if you were all ancient Babylonians!) (Don’t forget to tip your maidservant.)

In other good news, JD Vance did a great job under hostile questioning from leftist hacks on the Sunday shows last week, and I’m looking forward to him beating Tampon Tim like a rented mule in their debate.  And if Trump can discipline himself and stick to policy – please God, because we need this! – he should be able to remind people why Kamala dropped out with zero votes in the primary in 2020. 

Speaking of cringy leftist hacks, it was also fun to watch Steven Colbert interviewing CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.  Because when he earnestly said to her, “I know you guys are objective over there, that you just report the news as it is—” he was interrupted by a wave of laughter from his studio audience. 

The laughter caught him by surprise, and it made for a great, cringy moment when Collins asked, “Was that supposed to be a laugh line?” and Colbert accidently told the truth, saying, “It wasn’t supposed to be, but… I guess it is.” 

Ouch!  When you’ve lost the flock of low IQ and low-info sheep in Colbert’s audience, it’s time to give up the pretense, CNN. 

In international news, Israel continues to stubbornly insist on not surrendering to terrorists, and not dying, to the frustrated fury of the Biden administration. 

Additional, hilarious details have just come out about Israel’s missile strike that took out Hezbollah leader Fuad Shukr at the end of July.   Shukr had been so secretive that few confirmed recent pictures of him existed, and he’d been in hiding for nearly 40 years.  It turns out he’d been working in the second story of a seven-story building.

In fact, one of the long-term residents in the building reported that they’d barely seen him there, and that he was, “Like a ghost.”  And now he’s even more of a ghost!

Somehow the Israelis managed to get a mysterious phone call to Shukr, telling him to go up to his 7^th story residence, which is where the missile struck shortly thereafter.

I’d love to know what that phone call was about!  Did somebody in the IDF pretend to be one of his bodyguards, telling him that one of his wives was upstairs cheating on him, and he better come up right away? 

Or maybe a Jewish spy claimed to be a Nigerian prince, and urged Shukr to log on to his home computer so that he could receive millions of dollars that the prince was trying to get out of his country. 

But no matter what that call was about, I hope that in his final moments, Shukr heard the Israeli missile that was about to kill him, and had time to shake his fist and scream, “Jeewwwssss!” like Captain Kirk screaming, “KHAN!”

Speaking of dead terrorists, a top Hezbollah commander named Hussein Kassab decided he’d take a relaxing motorcycle ride through the coastal city of Tyre in Lebanon on Saturday.  Unfortunately for him, Team Yarmulke apparently has a satellite that specifically scans for genocidal murderers on Harleys, because they found him.

And in the middle of his joyride, they used a drone to drop a strike on Kassab-a’s melon.    

Finally, just to remind us that the European and internation media is as sleazily dishonest as our own MSM, they reported that over the weekend the IDF struck a school in Gaza, killing 100 people, and repeating Hamas’ insinuation that most of those were civilians.

But the IDF had done their homework, and they released video and other evidence showing that the former school had lately been used as a compound by terrorists, and that the number of dead were around half what Hamas had claimed.  

They also quickly released information identifying 19 of the dead as Hamas terrorists, followed on Saturday by another list of 12 more dead terrorists from that strike. 

So just like our “journalists” who have been claiming that Joe Biden was healthy and super compos mentis, and that Que Mala is a joyful, non-border czar moderate, the Hamas “sources” insisted that the school in question was full of Palestinian toddlers.

And you’d have to have been fallen out of a coconut tree, unburdened by a cerebral cortex, to believe either one of those groups.     

Hamas delenda est!