Author: martinsimpsonwriting

A New Category for my Columns: Jerk of the Month (posted 3/20/24)

First, let me thank everyone for the congratulations on our anniversary; you all are too kind.

As I mentioned on Monday, I’ve got a new category that will be featured in many future columns.  I’m calling it “Jerk of the Month.” 

I was going to call it “Jackass of the Month,” but upon reflection, the jackass is a useful animal, and one that has been put through enough degradation already, having been hijacked by Democrats as their party mascot. 

I pictured some poor jackass in a barnyard, being harassed by the other animals:

Cow: Hey Jerry, is it true that Anthony Weiner, AOC and Adam Schiff are all your guys?

Jerry (the jackass, shaking his head wearily): I’ve told you a hundred times, I’m not one of them.  They just picked me as their mascot.

Pig (oink-chuckling): Sure they did.

Jerry (to the pig): Hey Randy, aren’t Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg two of yours?

Pig (looking offended):  That’s just mean!

Jerry: Meaner than associating me with Imhotep Pelosi, or Adam Schiff?

Clydesdale horse: Take it easy, Jerry.

Jerry: And what about you?  Hillary Clinton is one of yours, right?

Clydesdale: Whoa, whoa.  Just because she’s got our ankles doesn’t make her a Clydesdale! 

Jerry (to a nearby chicken): What are you looking at, General Tso?  Eric Swalwell is one of yours!

Chicken:  Fang Fang is one of mine.  We’ve got nothing to do with Swalwell.  That guy smells worse than Randy.

Pig: Hey!

Jerry:  See how that feels?  (noticing a white Jeep Cherokee parked in front of the barn)  And what about you?  Would you like it if I insinuated that you’re related to Elizabeth Warren?

Jeep Cherokee:  That’s not funny! You can see that I’m white, Jerry. 

Jerry (narrowing his eyes): Exactly.  #wemustneverstopmockingher

And, scene.

Where was I?

Oh yes.  My first nominee for Jerk of the Month is a Palestinian Canadian – I picture a guy screaming, “Death to the infidel, eh?” – named Ahmed Kouta. 

He got a nursing degree in Gaza, and he made his latest trip there from Canada not long before the Hamas attack on Israel; now he’s apparently stuck there.  He’s got around 250K followers on Instagram, where he calls himself “Prince Kouta.”

He’s not a strong candidate for Jerk of the Month because he calls himself a prince – though if there were a competition for “douche of the month,” calling yourself “prince” would likely get you on the medal stand – but because of a video he put out on March 17th.  While the video is only 2 minutes long, it contains a weapons-grade blend of arrogance, bad faith and whining.

Elsewhere in his social media Ahmed has been wailing about how the innocent, sainted “Palestinians” are starving to death, all because of the evil Jooooosss.

But this video is basically an unboxing video of a MRE – “meal ready to eat” – that the USA has been air dropping for the citizens of Gaza.  He shows his audience the contents of the MRE, one at a time.

“Martin, does he get excited, and express his thanks to the American people for giving his people this life-sustaining aid?” you are not asking, because you know that he wouldn’t be a candidate for jerk of the month if he did that.

He starts by saying that the MREs have been airdropped to Gazans courtesy of the American defense department.  “This is the airdrop they drop on us… and then all the airstrikes that they also hit us with.”  

Already I wish the MRE had hit him on the head.

He pulls out one packet and shows it to the camera; it’s crackers.  Then a packet of applesauce.  Then gum. Then something that he looks at, and tosses aside, saying, “I don’t know.  We don’t see this here.” (That bag was actually a heater; the user adds water, which creates a chemical reaction to produce heat.)  Next is an energy bar, and “French vanilla,” (?) then cashews, then peanut butter.

Then the video cuts to a little later, after he’s opened and tried each of the packets in the MRE.  And he says, “Overall, it’s one of the worst meals I’ve ever had.  I literally ate a piece of everything, because… imagine I’m fasting all day, hungry, haven’t eaten anything, and then I came to eat this… nothing.  Only the peanut butter tastes like our Canadian peanut butter.”

“Everything else?  This whole meal is like a 2 out of 10. Not even a 1 out of 10, actually.  This is torturing us more than it’s being ate.”

My first thought was that someone should treat him to a little waterboarding, followed by hooking up part of his anatomy to a car battery, followed by playing Dylan Mulvaney’s music video for him on a loop.  (Don’t look it up, CO nation!) 

And then he could be asked to complete a survey asking him to rate those tortures, as compared to the “torture” of being given free food.   

Ugh.  MREs are routinely given to our soldiers in the field.  (By the way, the life of any one of them is worth more than the collective lives of every malicious anti-Semite in your entire social network, Princess!)  They are designed to not spoil or rot, and to provide life-sustaining nutrition in challenging environments. 

I’ll grant that a MRE doesn’t sound like a gourmet meal to me, and I probably wouldn’t choose to eat it, if I had a lot of other options.

On the other hand, I do have a lot of other options.  Because I’m not a hateful little b*tch who supported a bunch of terrorist scum who gang-raped and slaughtered a lot of defenseless civilians, bringing down a righteous drum of karmic whup-ass on me and my vile co-religionists, which means that I’ll never have to rely on my innocent victims to feed my sorry, unrepentant arse.

So I’ve got that going for me.

As one commenter on the video said, “If you’re rating humanitarian aid on a scale of 1 to 10, you don’t need humanitarian aid.”

Yep.   

Another commenter pointed out that Kouta only showed the snacks that come with the MRE that he held up; the main course was “vegetable crumbles with pasta in taco style sauce.” 

Which means that in addition to being an obnoxious ingrate, Kouta is also either a liar, or else someone stole the main course out of his MRE before it got to him.  Now who could have done that, I wonder?

Well, Kouta accidentally gave us a clue in the middle of his moan-fest.  When he first displayed the MRE, he said, “It comes for free, but in the end we still have to buy it.” 

That’s right.  The American taxpayers provide you with free food, and then the noble jihadis in Hamas steal that food, and extort you into paying them for it.  But the Americans and the Jews are the bad guys?

Got it.     

On behalf of the American people, I apologize, Ahmed.  We’re going to get our best chefs right on the task of providing you with the kind of delicacies that your sophisticated palate demands.

In the meantime, might I suggest that there is an alternative source of protein in Gaza for you right now?  We call it “terrorist crumbles with diced shrapnel in taco style sauce.”  Don’t think of it as cannibalizing the corpses of Hamas fighters, think of it as “consuming a Canadian-peanut-butter-esque substance.”

And if some of the servings you can scrounge might have gone bad after a little too much time in the sun, don’t worry, because the IDF is preparing some more for you right now.

Bon appetit, Ahmed, and congratulations on your nomination for Jerk of the Month!

Hamas delenda est!

Hur Wrecks Biden, Fani & a Subway Criminal Wreck Themselves, & I Celebrate My Anniversary (posted 3/18/24)

I’m tempted to open today with some comments on Hur’s testimony last week about Biden’s mishandling of classified documents.  And if I were to do so, I’d mention how many of the Democrats made complete fools out of themselves during the hearings, blatantly lying about what Hur said in his report… while he was sitting right there to refute them!

I might hypothetically call special attention to Pramila Jayapal (and not just because an anagram of her name is “liar pajama play,” because that is obvious to everyone) who read from a prepared stack of lies.  When she said that Hur’s “investigation resulted in a complete exoneration” of the late Joe Biden, Hur interrupted to contradict her. 

She immediately started talking over him, repeating that, “I’m going to continue with my questions.” (Of course, she wasn’t asking any questions.)  Irritated when Hur insisted on making his point, Jayapal repeated, “You exonerated him.”

And Hur corrected her, mid-lie, again: “I did not exonerate him.”

That’s when Jayapal gave the most obnoxious smirking glare and insisted, “Mr. Hur, it’s my time. Thank you.

If I were commenting on the hearing, I would have to momentarily return to a fixture of my past columns – the Simpson Face Punchability Index (SFPI) – to note that normally Jayapal has a SFPI of 78 (in the middle of the “resting Hillary-face” zone), but during her pathetic “it’s my time” comment, her SFPI spiked to 94. 

Which equates, as regular readers may remember, to a situation in which even Mother Theresa would be unable to stop herself from instinctively slapping the dishonest smirk off her face.  

And I would probably – if I were to comment on the hearing – point out that my favorite part of Hur’s interviews was when Biden went off on a long, rambling tangent about his Corvette (I swear I am not making this up) and – in the words of an actual, official document of the United States – “made car noises.” 

But I’ve decided not to comment on those hearings.  Because we need to do everything we can to be sure that Biden remains on the ticket until election day.  So I think he’s doing a great job!

And by the way, I missed the Hur testimony, which I’m sure was not worth watching.  Instead, because it’s pollen season in north Florida, I washed our cars that afternoon. 

And you should have seen the strange look my wife gave me when she came out and caught me in the driver’s seat of her car, yanking the steering wheel back and forth and going, “Vroom!  Vroom!  Look at me, I’m the leader of the free world!”  

I will instead start my column with a few observations about the judge’s bizarre ruling in the Fani Willis case on Friday. 

The judge read his findings, pointing out the long list of damning facts proving that Willis and Nathan Wade broke every legal rule except coveting thy neighbor’s oxen… before explaining that if Wade left the case, Fani could remain!

Lots of people are already pointing out the logical inconsistency of finding that Willis and Wade both behaved unethically, but then ousting Wade and allowing Willis to stay.  (And by the way, where is the old-school, oppressive patriarchy when you need it?  Shouldn’t the system have condemned the adulteress and let the dimwitted man-wh*re stay on the case?  It’s almost like we don’t live under the yoke of misogynistic oppression after all.)

This decision fits a troubling pattern of bias, in which judges admit to finding clear evidence of guilt and misconduct – as when Comer basically said that Hillary was guilty in the illegal server and secret documents case, or when Hur found that Biden clearly stole and mishandled secret docs for decades – but still allows the leftist in question to escape consequences. 

But this might be one of those “God works in mysterious ways” situations.  Obviously, if the outcome had been that Willis got tossed out on her Fani and no other corrupt leftist prosecutors could have been found to take up the case, that would have been better.

But if the case is to go forward, the best-case scenario is that Fani stays in the seat (HA!), since she is so thoroughly discredited.  And judging from her terrible performance so far, I’m sure that she’ll be be-clowning herself even more.  She has already shown the emotional stability and maturity of a conceited junior-high girl, and that was BEFORE she got publicly and rightly humiliated for a solid month. 

There’s no one more angry and incapable of rational behavior than a mean girl who got pantsed in front of the whole school.  So her future mis-steps should provide plenty of entertainment.

In today’s Stupid Criminal Story, I give you the tragic tale of Dajuan Robinson, 36, who got onto the NYC subway last week with a bad attitude and a gun in his backpack.  (I don’t watch MSNBC, but I’m assuming that they’ve already reported that “Dajuan” is a very common name among White Christian nationalists.) 

Anyway, Dajuan goaded a 32-year-old man to fight, and then lunged at him, pushing him down and punching him several times.  When a woman on the train pulled out a knife and stabbed Dujuan twice in the back, he interrupted his attack to pull a gun from his backpack.  Then the other guy fought with him, got the gun away from him, and shot him with it.   

This is obviously a happy-ending story, but not just because a violent creep got shot with his own gun.  How about the average New Yorker who jumped in and stabbed the guy first?  Most observers in such situations usually either cower, or pull out their cell phones and narrate the action like low-IQ ghouls. 

Even better, a Brooklyn DA has said that the shooter won’t face charges!  I know: pick up your jaw and read that again.  A DA in Brooklyn said that somebody who defended himself against a violent perp won’t be prosecuted!  Now if someone can just tell that DA about the Daniel Penny case! 

In fact, the great Babylon Bee had a hilarious Penny story on 3/6, with the headline “With Daniel Penny Arrested, NYC Forced to Deploy National Guard to Protect Subway.”  The best lines in the story are faux-attributed to Governor Hochul: “We desperately need the Guard to come do exactly what we arrested Daniel Penny for doing.  Civilians have become too afraid to confront violence on the subway, for reasons we cannot determine.”

Unfortunately for Dajuan Robinson, that might be changing.

In other news, I’ve considered adding a few new categories to some of my future columns, one on stories about our horrific mainstream media (I’m thinking of a title phrase I saw on another conservative website: “No matter how much you think you hate the MSM, it’s not enough.”)

The other new category will be offering nominees for “Jackass of the Month.” And because I love you all, I’m going to write a short column on Wednesday with my first nominee for that award.

I know: I spoil you.  And you’re welcome.

Finally, I leave you with a self-indulgent choice for my latest “celebration of excellence” category.  And the subject for this one is… drumroll please…

Me!

Because 38 years ago I sold my motorcycle and my shirt, and moved to Florida to get a PhD in English.  A week later, I met a blonde smoke-show of a Norwegian goddess who was so out of my league it was ridiculous.  She was charming and witty and kind… and did I mention her incandescent hotness?  

I mean, I couldn’t even look directly at her.  I had to poke a hole in a shoebox and look at her through that, like an eclipse!

That night I went home and took a self-inventory. 

I look like I look (i.e. nothing to write home about), and my net worth was a used black Mazda GLC with no AC (in Florida!), a “Most Improved Player” high school football trophy, and a couple of particle-board bookcases full of cheap paperbacks.  Not only that, I was starting a degree that within 5 years’ time offered the possibility of earning well in excess of $18,000 a year!   

Sure, I had a razor-sharp wit and the strength of ten men (because my heart was pure), but most people were not overly impressed by that. 

I cannot describe the unlikeliness of me landing her!  “Drawing to an inside straight” doesn’t begin to touch it.  “Outkicking my coverage,” is inadequate.  Winning the lottery is closer.

As it happened, 30 years later Randy Newman wrote a lovely song that describes my situation perfectly.  It’s called “She Chose Me,” and you should go listen to it right now. 

It’s got strings and a piano and a French horn, and it starts with these lines: “I’m not much to talk to, and I know how I look/ What I know about life, comes out of a book/ But of all of the people, there are in the world/ She chose me.” 

And 35 years ago today, in the First Lutheran Church in Gainesville, FL, in perhaps the greatest feat of marrying-up in human history, I got Karen Ludwigsen to be my wife. 

Happy anniversary, sweetheart!

Also, as always, Hamas delenda est

Deadspin Dies, Stupid Criminals, & Celebrations of Excellence (posted 3/15/24)

First up today is Schadenfreude Corner:

You might remember the leftist sports site Deadspin because of its senior writer Carron “Karen” Phillips.  He’s a lovely little whitey-hater who managed to work race into many of his stories over the years, culminating five months ago when he smeared a 9-year-old Kansas City Chiefs fan as a racist for wearing “black face” at a game.

Of course the kid wasn’t wearing black face; he was wearing the team colors, both red and black.  He was also wearing an Indian headdress, which allowed Phillips to go for the vaunted “racial arsonist two-fer,” accusing the kid of “[finding] a way to hate black people and Native Americans at the same time.” 

You don’t have to search Phillips’ entire oeuvre to see if he has ever expressed outrage at a certain albino-adjacent Massachusetts Senator who has parlayed the actual use of “red face” into a lucrative academic and then political career.   (#wemustneverstopmockingher)

Because of course he hasn’t.  Besides, he doesn’t think that kid was “hating” Indians any more than he was “hating” blacks.

The idiotic leftist fixation about Indian sports mascots has always driven me crazy.  Everybody knows that you pick sports mascots because of their positive qualities. 

That’s why teams with animal mascots pick animals admired for their strength or ferociousness; you’ll see tons of lions, tigers and bears, but no weasels or skunks.  Bird mascots include eagles, hawks and ravens, but no pigeons or vultures.

And the same goes for human mascots, obviously.  Minnesota didn’t pick the Vikings because they hate big, blond white guys.  Towns didn’t pick Oilers, Packers or Steelers because they despise working stiffs.  And the “Pittsburgh Pedophiles” didn’t narrowly edge out “steelers” in a naming competition!

So the many Braves, Chiefs and Indians in sports are compliments, not insults.  And even though I can see that “Redskins” may have been a little much, I think Washington screwed up by not just re-naming the team the Warriors.  They already had an iconic helmet with a big “W” on it, for crying out loud. 

Where was I?  Oh yeah.  Carron/Karen Phillips is a racist jerk, and Deadspin is a woke enough outfit that they hired and supported a jerk like Phillips. 

Aaannnndddd… this week Deadspin was sold, and every staff member there was immediately fired.

HA!  I can only hope that there is a factory that makes racist dog whistles and is looking to hire a tester, because Carron/Karen would love that job.

Except that he’d get fired within a week, since every single sound he ever hears sounds like racism to him.

So learn to code, Carron!         

In the “Stupid Criminals” category, I bring you the tale of New Yorker Sheldon Johnson, a career criminal and drug dealer who was sentenced 25 years ago to 50 years in prison, for what news reports coyly describe as “attempted murder and assorted other offenses.”  

Because Johnson committed his crimes in New York, where the Democrats in charge spend most of their crime-fighting energy on trying to send Republican presidential candidates to the electric chair for taking out giant real estate loans and then paying them back with interest, he appealed to Alvin Bragg and Governor Hochul for clemency.

In his letter to Bragg, his first paragraph demonstrated how he has taken full responsibility for his crimes: “I am a product of systemic racism; intergenerational incarceration.  A product of trauma, the school-to-prison pipeline and crack-era Reaganomics.”

Got that?  His grandpa went to Alcatraz in the 1930s, and then when Johnson was a freshman he took a left out of the cafeteria and instead of heading to Biology he got into the prison pipeline, plus Reagan got elected. So what chance did poor, young Sheldon have?

Naturally, Hochul gave him clemency and let him out last May.  He got a job as a counselor for at-risk teens in the Queens public defender’s office, and received fawning attention from the usual leftist suspects, who touted him as a great success story. 

Aaannnnndddd… a week ago police responded to a wellness check call at the Bronx apartment of Collin Small.  The cops found Johnson in Small’s apartment.  They also found Small’s torso and feet in a garbage bin, and his legs, arms and head in the freezer.

They took Small to a hospital, where he’s listed in stable condition.

HA!  I kid.  He’s dead. 

The cops arrested Johnson and started an investigation that found, and I quote, “Smalls and Johnson were in Sing Sing prison at the same time, and it is believed that there was animosity between them.”

Good lord, I hope so!  Because if Johnson murdered and dismembered Small and they were besties, I don’t want to know what Johnson would do to someone he felt animosity for!

“Okay, Martin,” you may be saying to yourself, “you’ve established that Johnson is a criminal. But is he a truly stupid criminal, as your entertaining new column feature suggests?”

Oh ye of little faith.  I hadn’t gotten to the part about how Johnson got caught yet:

First, Johnson killed Smalls in an apartment building, with a gun.  And no, the gun was not equipped with a silencer.

In fact, several neighbors reported hearing two gun shots, followed by a man saying, “Please don’t, I have a family!” followed by several more shots.

The building superintendent then checked security camera footage and saw a man walking in and out of the apartment multiple times, and changing clothes each time.  For one trip he wore a plaid golf cap and pushed a plastic, wheeled storage bin. 

For the next trip he wore a different jacket and a fisherman’s hat – because nothing is more common than a guy in the Bronx following his golf outing with a fishing trip – and carrying two bags.  (News reports don’t specifically describe them as “foot-sized bags,” but I think we know.) (And ditto on the “torso-sized storage bin.”)

On the third trip he wore a puffy coat, sunglasses and a blonde wig.  (I hope Bragg has added a second-degree cultural appropriation charge for that wig!)

Yet even though he’s a master of disguise, the superintendent somehow figured out that something was up, and called the cops.

So great job, New York Democrats!  If you’d kept Johnson inside, Small would be alive today.

I mean, unless he was foolish enough to take the subway, in which case he probably would have been shoved onto the tracks by a violent psychopath and dismembered anyway. 

So just never mind.

Finally, I have two entries for my “Celebrating Excellence” category:

Two weeks ago, a Senate Bill signed by Ron DeSantis last year went into effect at my alma mater, and UF ended all contracts with DEI vendors, closed its DEI department and fired all staffers who were employed in DEI positions. 

As a liberal arts professor for 30 years, I cannot tell you how difficult that is to believe.  As far as I know, it’s the first time a university DEI department has been shut down anywhere in the country. 

I know that many schools will continue to fight this, especially after DeSantis is out of office, and he is certainly hated by many academics all over the state right now.  But if you can judge a man’s character by the nature of his enemies, DeSantis has given conservatives one more reason to admire him.

Man, I hope we can have that guy as our president some day!

But we don’t just find excellence in humans like the best governor in the nation.  We also find it in our animal friends.  And no, I’m not referring to Cassie the Wonder Dog and her much-deserved place in the Canine Hall of Fame.

I’m referring to the site of a Scottish shepherd, “Seanthesheepman,” which I recommend you all check out.  Regular readers will remember that one of the highlights of our trip to Scotland last summer was a highlands visit with a shepherd and his amazing border collies.  Sean is not the same guy we saw, but his site is great. 

It features his great Scottish accent, lovely highlands scenery, and a lot of cool Scottish sheep.  But the stars are the collies, and they are gorgeous and brilliant.  Some of my favorite videos feature a dog-cam – a camera mounted on the dog’s shoulder to give a dog’s eye view as he trots and sprints around the countryside. 

If I ever need a quick pick-me-up, there are several videos that will always do the trick.  There’s the edited coverage showing Hillary supporters going from ecstasy to agony on election night in 2016, and videos of great music, and ones showing servicemen and women homecomings, and surprise twin birth announcements.

But there’s nothing quite like watching a dedicated dog sitting stock-still on an ATV seat one second, and then on a signal, leaping off and tearing across a field in a graceful blur.  They’re obviously doing what God made them for and men trained them for, and I’m convinced that watching them is good for your spirit and your blood pressure. 

Have a great weekend everybody!  

Hamas delenda est!

Introducing New Column Features (posted 3/13/24)

As I was plowing through material these last several days, I’ve realized that I might want to institute a few specific, recurring features in my columns, because so many stories fit familiar patterns.  Here are a few categories I’m thinking about:

Schadenfreude Central – for stories in which bad actors receive their just desserts, to our delight

Stupid Criminal Stories – similar, but sometimes with tragedy mixed in

Unexpectedly! – for stories about the easily predictable outcome of a terrible leftist policy, reported by clueless dolts who were somehow shocked by that outcome.

Celebrations of Excellence – as an antidote to the many stories of incompetence and imbecility, I’ll highlight skilled, talented people doing great things, to help maintain our cautious optimism.

Not every story that catches my interest will fit one of those categories, of course.  And I’ll always have time for some interstitial mockery of various boneheads – Mexican president Al Sisi can see the pyramid where Imhotep Pelosi grew up from his office; Liz Warren is as white as the crowd at an ABBA cover band performance in Stockholm (#wemustneverstopmockingher), etc.

So here’s a first try.  I’d appreciate any feedback, and if you have suggestions for other categories, please share them.

Schadenfreude Central

If there’s one thing we all know about AOC – aside from the alleged juiciness of her booty, according to her – it’s that much like Wile E. Coyote, she is a super-genius.  In December of 2020, she shared some of her deep thoughts in an online post reacting to defund-the-police activists who had confronted politicians in public spaces:

“The whole point of protesting is to make people uncomfortable.” She argued that only by causing discomfort can activists get “traction,” saying, “To folks who complain [that] protest demands make others uncomfortable… that’s the point.”

Well, last weekend AOC was in a public space – going to a movie with her low-T boyfriend – when some obnoxious protestors started following her through a building and down a street.

They had cell phones out, and kept haranguing her.  “We love Hamas!  We insist that you call Israel’s self-defense a horrible genocidal war crime.  Call it genocide!  Say it!!”  (I’m loosely paraphrasing.)

AOC, because she always supports protest for social change, said, “Great job guys!  Thanks for speaking truth to power, because people like me need to be held accountable, even if it makes us uncomfortable.  I will happily parrot whatever you want me to say, and then pose for selfies with you.  Also, do you think these jeans make my booty look juicy?”  (I’m loosely paraphrasing.)

HA!  I kid.  What she actually did was yell, “You’re lying!” at them, and shake her finger in their faces.  She also complained that they were going to edit her response “totally out of context,” then said, “It’s f—ed up, man!  And you’re not helping these people!  You’re not helping them!!”

To a normal viewer, it almost appeared as if she doesn’t think obnoxious protestors have the right to make HER uncomfortable.

And I’ll admit it: the protestors were obnoxious.  The “male” was wearing a covid mask (in 2024!) and looked to be well into the second trimester, and the female had crazy eyes, and they both spouted the kind of aggressive pro-Hamas propaganda that invites a good face punching.

In other words, they’re AOC’s kind of people…as long as they’re harassing Republicans.  But like all socialists, she doesn’t like it when the proles turn on their betters.   

Did that make you uncomfortable, AOC? 

That’s the point.

Stupid Criminal Stories

Antoinette Baez worked for Safeway grocery stores in California for 22 years, but last year she got fired.  Guess why.

No, it wasn’t for shoplifting.  And it wasn’t for showing up late, or sleeping on the job, or wearing a MAGA hat.  And no, it wasn’t for pooping in the aisles.  (This is California we’re talking about, so that’s not as far-fetched a scenario as it might be in a sane state.)

She was fired because a lazy bum of a shoplifter tried to waltz out with several bags of groceries she didn’t pay for, and Antoinette grabbed one of the bags.  The shoplifter pushed and shoved her, but then gave up and left without stealing anything. 

Three days later, Safeway fired Baez.  Because they’ve got a policy that no employees can touch a shoplifter or pursue them to prevent their thieving, which they claimed Baez violated, even though she never touched the thief.  A judge has miraculously sided with Baez, and she won a judgment for her back pay, though they haven’t offered her her job back.

Her lawyer said, “Safeway’s a food bank for thieves.  The moral of the story is that it makes way more sense to steal from Safeway than to work for Safeway.”

Yep.  This is why you can’t have nice things, Californians.

And in this case, the stupid criminal isn’t the shoplifter, because she faced no consequences for her crime.  The stupid criminal is whoever is making corporate policy at Safeway.   They should be paying a civil penalty to Baez in her upcoming wrongful termination suit.

Hopefully before they go bankrupt for being criminally stupid.

Unexpectedly!

The leftist residents of Austin, TX voted to cut funding for their police department in 2020.  Annnnndddd….

“The city has been plagued by police staffing shortages and longer 911-call response times since.”

Unexpectedly!

The top cop in Austin reports that they’ve had two contracts fall through, they’ve lost more officers than they’ve hired for each of the last 6 years, and 40 officers filed retirement papers at the same time after the leftist city council “voted to scrap a 4-year contract that the city had already agreed to in principle.”

Residents have reported taking a Lyft to a hospital after a car wreck because nobody answered 911 calls, and the crime rate has gone way up.  Even after the state legislature forced Austin to restore police funding – proving that Texas is still a sane state, even if the idiots in Austin have lost their minds – the officer shortage persists.

It seems like in a town where residents dislike cops and don’t want to pay them, cops are reluctant to take a job there.

Unexpectedly!    

Celebration of Excellence

Normally I am annoyed by people with ridiculous names, just on general principle.  But I am happy to make an exception for Nayib Bukele. 

In fact, I put his name in an anagram maker, and found that those same letters spell “Beanie Bulky.”  And I know how to pronounce that, and it makes me laugh.  So with all due respect – but I really mean it this time! – I will refer to Bukele as Beanie Bulky from now on.   

When B-squared was elected President of El Salvador four years ago – an office that nobody would seek were their cojones not bulky (see what I did there?) – it was the most dangerous country in the western hemisphere.  He was elected specifically to crack down on the violent criminal gangs that had tormented and destabilized the country. 

And he actually did it.  Through a combination of tough crackdowns, limited negotiations with gang leaders, and canny moves to set gang members against their feckless leadership, Bulky has made El Salvadore the safest country in the Western hemisphere, and won re-election with over 90% of the vote last month. 

And that’s not a Saddam-esque “everyone voted for the dictator because they’d be killed if they didn’t” sham vote total.  The people recognize that BB has hammered the criminals and kept the citizens safe, and they rewarded him accordingly.

No one knows if this will last, or if the criminals who run so much of Central America will make a comeback.  But for now Bulky Bukele has provided an encouraging example for neighboring nations. 

The ACLU doesn’t approve of all of his methods (shocker!), and he’s walking a dangerous tightrope.  But when push comes to shove, his instinct has been to favor the rights of law-abiding citizens over those of the criminals who prey on them – unlike, for example, California or Austin.

And I’ll bet the new El Salvador model is looking pretty good to the beleaguered citizens of large parts of Third-World-adjacent blue cities like San Francisco, Chicago and New York.

So three cheers for Beanie Bulky and the long-suffering citizens of El Salvador!    

Hamas delenda est!

More SOTU Thoughts, Rare Good News out of Cali, & RuPaul Gets Schooled in Virtue Signaling (posted 3/11/24)

This might have to be a three-column week for me, because the pace of odd political stories is increasing.  So here goes.

Because I have a weak stomach, I limited my live exposure to Biden’s State of the Union speech, but I’ve read some more excerpts and coverage, and have a few more thoughts. 

To start, I don’t know why any Supreme Court justices still come to the SOTU.  Only six of the nine showed up this time, but that’s still six too many.   There may have been a reason for the highest court to be on hand for the SOTU back in the day, but ever since Obama lied about a recent ruling and insulted them to their faces in 2010, they should have all stopped attending.

When Biden brought up abortion, he addressed them directly, and – unexpectedly! – both angrily and incomprehensibly.  This is a transcript, which I only wish I were making up: “With all due respect, justices, women are not without electric–…electoral power, excuse me, without electoral or political power.  You’re about to realize zzhh ow mush (which I think was supposed to be “just how much”)…

I put the ellipses in at the end because it seems like Biden stopped there, and that’s not a grammatical end to a sentence.

I actually do like prefacing a statement with “with all due respect,” because what follows is inevitably never respectful.  Which makes the point pretty artfully: I’m going to treat this next point about someone with all the respect it is rightfully due, which is none at all.

I’m going to try to start working that phrase into my columns more often.

Biden used that phrase in his typically hostile way, but he showed that he doesn’t even know how to threaten correctly.  His point seemed to be that since women have so much electoral power, the justices will regret opposing them – even though judges are supposed to interpret the law, not react to political power – before he ends with what he wants to be an ominous warning about the electoral consequences of taking a supposedly unpopular position.  

Does he think SCOTUS judges are elected?  Because if so… yikes!

Thankfully, all of the justices gave him the stink eye – even the three far-left ones – and the awkwardness of insulting people who are restrained by decorum from punching back cannot have played well with anyone who’s not already a hateful far-left loon.

Especially since the Dems played to their stereotype throughout the night.  In a speech full of lies, they weren’t perturbed at all.  But the one time when Biden accidentally told the truth – calling Laken Riley’s murderer “an illegal” – they became outraged!

And then Biden, because his spine is made of melting ice cream, apologized for calling an illegal alien murderer “illegal.”

Also, is everybody else as confused as I am about his comments about “Lincoln” Riley? 

I don’t mean the part about how he couldn’t get her name right, even when he was surrounded by people with big buttons with her name on them.  

I mean what he said next: “But how many thousands of people being killed by illegals?” 

What?  That’s not a sentence, and it doesn’t make sense.

It could mean something like, “How about all the many others who are being killed by illegals? Why don’t we say their names?”  And if that’s what he meant, more power to him!  Let’s start publicizing the names and stories of ALL the innocent Americans robbed, raped or killed by the millions of unvetted illegals the left’s open border is responsible for.

Or it could mean, “There AREN’T thousands of others being killed by illegals.”  In which case, the entire sentient world cries, “Malarky!” And let’s loose the hounds of fact-checking. 

All that being said, I do see two positives that came out of the SOTU:

1. Biden missed a great chance to get his speech off on a good foot: a bunch of pro-Hamas protestors block his car on the way there and he didn’t run them over.  He should remember that at the end of your life (which for him came around 3 years ago), it’s not the things that you did that you regret, so much as the things you didn’t do. 

And he didn’t order his driver to run over those Hamas-holes.

That would have been such a win-win!  Every normal American would cheer as the hateful little narcissists went careening off (or under) the car. Plus, Biden couldn’t get in any trouble for any deaths or injuries, because his attorneys could use the precedent of the Hur defense: you can’t charge this guy, because he’s obviously out of his gourd!

2. The MSM and Dem hacks  (but I repeat myself) have been out touting his SOTU like crazy, pointing to a positive reaction to the speech in polls.  (Though as a columnist on RedState pointed out, it was the smallest positive rating of any SOTU since they started being rated.)  They’re able to do so because the bar had been set so low that Biden managed to trip and fall forward over the metaphorical sandbag of the super-low expectations.

Which is great for us, because as I’ve said before, our best hope is that Biden does just well enough to stay in the race, and not get swapped out for anyone with higher ratings than him.  (And there’s only one person in the solar system who is NOT in that category, and her name rhymes with Shamala Sharris.) 

On another topic, beleaguered California has at least gotten a little bit of good news this past week: two of the most egregious leftist pols in the country – and that is saying something – both lost primary contests this week.  Horrible whitey-hater Barbara Lee and staff-abusing dim bulb Katie Porter both went down to highly entertaining defeats on Tuesday.

Lee had left her long-time House seat to run for Dianne Feinstein’s Senate seat.  You may remember Feinstein from the way she spent her last months on earth under her daughter’s conservatorship, because she was non compos mentis — and yet well enough to be a Democrat US Senator.

Great job, California voters! 

At 75, Lee was clearly too old to run again, and yet she did so anyway.

I’m sorry.  My crack staff is telling me that it’s not her age, but her IQ that is 75.  Sorry about that. 

Her age is 77.  So, yeah.  Too old to run for office.  (We’re making an exception for Trump, but only because he’s 27 years younger than his opponent.)

Katie Porter was running for the same Senate office.

You may remember her for sitting in front of a white board full of gibberish and speaking nonsense, or perhaps for abusing her staff the way Hillary did Bill, when behind closed doors and after the newest young secretary burst out of Bill’s office, running away at full speed and furiously rubbing her bottom.

Well, in a race in which the top two contenders go into a run-off, Babs Lee came in fourth, and Katie Porter came in third.  And in even better news, Republican Steve Garvey came in second.

The bad news is that he’s up against Adam Schiff, and it’s California.  So Pencil-Neck will almost certainly be the new Senator from CA, and Californians will continue to get what they’ve voted for, good and hard.    

Still, we need to take good news wherever we can find it in those big blue states, and at least we had the pleasure of watching two horrible leftists leave their House seats and then get humiliated in their attempt at the Senate.

Speaking of arrogant lefties getting what’s coming to them, even if you appreciate normalcy, you probably have heard of RuPaul, who is a famous drag queen.  You know, the same way Liz Warren is a famous drag Indian.  (#wemustneverstopmockingher)

On March 4th, RuPaul announced that he had launched an online bookstore called Allstora, which will NOT ban books, in protest against conservatives’ rabid desire to ban books.  Even though conservatives have not been trying to ban books, which would involve trying to stop a book from being published.

No, conservatives are just weirdos who don’t want taxpayer money being spent on gay – or straight! – porn for school libraries.  Unbelievably enough, they really don’t want their kids reading any books that include graphic details about how to sexually service creepy older people.

Even though, with all due respect, that describes the first several chapters of Que Mala’s political autobiography. 

Anyway, RuPaul tooted his own horn (and I don’t know gay slang, so if that’s a euphemism, I apologize) by saying that his fabulous new bookstore would be “a marketplace for all books and all stories.”    

Annnnndddd…  within one day of being opened, RuPaul’s bookstore started getting hit by an avalanche of protests and requests to “ban” books.  But break out your sad trombone – again, that sounds like it could be gay slang, so mea culpa? – because it turns out that all of those protests came from… wait for it… “progressive” book banners! 

Unexpectedly! 

And a few days later, RuPaul tucked his tail between his legs (sorry for that mental image) and caved, agreeing to put scary red warnings on books by conservatives, and even agreeing to remove some books by some firebrand conservatives such as Elon Musk. 

Who, as you might have noticed, is not even a conservative. 

So great job, self-styled “defenders of democratic values.”  You’ve made the point obviously clear: the intolerant people who want to dictate what others read are… leftists!

Hamas delenda est!

The SOTU Speech, & What We Should Do Between Now & November (posted 3/8/24)

Well, there’s an hour and twenty minutes that I’ll never get back.

Oh, who am I kidding?  I popped in and out of the SOTU for maybe a total of 10 minutes, my rule being that as soon as my gag reflex threatened to kick in and offload some of the bourbon (mmmm, brownest of the brown liquors) that I had been consuming – as fragments I have shored against my ruin – I tuned out until the urge to purge receded.   

(That’s right, trenchant references to Lionel Hutz and T.S. Eliot in the same sentence!  Suck it, other columnists who dare not attempt such a rhetorical stretch!) 

While I’m tooting my own horn, I posted a column on Wednesday featuring my imagining of Joe Biden preparing for a speaking engagement.  If you haven’t seen it, scroll back to Wednesday afternoon’s posts, and give it a quick read.  I’ll wait….

I know: it wasn’t super-hard to predict, but did I nail it or what?  The confusion, the slurring, the physical stiffness.  The ridiculous shrinkflation issue.  And I knew he’d be screwing up names – I had him calling Rocky Balboa “Rocky Road” and the Cookie Monster the “Cake Moose” – but I didn’t get the square on the Biden Bingo card for “Lincoln Riley.”

(Which is pretty funny.  One Republican whips the Dems and frees their slaves 160 years ago, and he’s still living in their heads rent-free!)

If I missed anything, it was by under-estimating the amount of sustained anger Biden was capable of; I expected a few bursts of “get off my lawn,” quickly trailing off into Cocaine Mitch-esque short-duration catatonia. 

But whatever drug cocktail they’re giving Brandon to keep him upright for 81 consecutive minutes must be some strong stuff.  So good for him.

I mentioned several years ago that I’d prefer that we get rid of the SOTU entirely.  It’s always an insufferable cavalcade of imbecility and phoniness: a laundry list of your stuff (which is all great!) and the other party’s stuff (they’re wrong about everything!), followed by ridiculous promises that no one thinks that you’ll keep. 

And ooh, there’s a couple of guys/gals/children/oldsters in the crowd whom I’d like to use as political props!  I’ll point to them and ask them to stand up, unless they’re in a wheelchair or paralyzed as a result of one of the other party’s stupid and destructive policies.  Then I’ll scold the other side for paralyzing their sorry arses.

Bah! 

As in most things, we should handle the SOTU the way the Founders did: write your message in a short document – we’ve bought a new batch of muskets, we’re accepting bids to build a few federal buildings, there’s a boll weevil problem in Mississippi, but the sorghum crop is coming along nicely – hand it to a guy on a horse, and slap the horse’s rear end to send him off to carry it to be read in the House.

Beyond that, I didn’t find a lot worth commenting on.  Of course Biden lied and dissembled and argued in bad faith, as I think most people expected him to.  I don’t think that anything he said will be remembered for long, as much as his affect, which was 100% angry old man. 

In that sense, it reminded me a lot of his Reichstag speech in September of 2022, minus the ominous red lighting and the two Marines flanking him, wishing they didn’t have to be there.

I don’t know how that behavior is not a huge political mistake for Biden.  His poll numbers are bad, and his best asset is Trump’s high negatives among independents and moderates.  So he should be trying to go all kinder and friendlier, to draw the moderates to him.   To the extent that he attacks Trump, his tone should be more in sorrow than in anger.

Instead, he’s scolding the nation, calling everybody who has ever considered voting for Trump unpatriotic fascist deplorables.  And he’s shaking his bony fist and hollering like Grandpa Simpson.  “In my day, we got 20 hectares to the hogshead, and that was good enough for us!  Also, we really fixed the Kaiser’s wagon!  No joke!”

If I had the Trump team’s ear, I would say that in the wake of this speech, I think we should do 4 things:

1. Set up a website with a daily updated count of crimes committed and costs imposed by illegals.  (Make it like the debt clock that some pols used to put up, when they pretended that either they or we were troubled by our rising national debt.)  

Keep a tally of the total number of crimes, along with highlighting the worst of the worst.   Also give numbers on how much we’ve been spending on their schooling, healthcare, prison, welfare benefits, etc.

We’d have to handle it carefully, with many statements about “not all illegals” (aggravating as those are), because we alienate winnable voters if we attack all immigrants, or defuse the blame and take it off the open border policies that are causing all this chaos. 

2. Try to get Trump to take as low a profile as possible, and keep the spotlight on Biden and his policies.

3. Focus on get-out-the-vote efforts, and stop telling people to NOT vote by mail and/or early!  (Dammit!) The Dems are great at that, and they will be again, and if we don’t fight fire with fire, we are going to under-perform in November.

4. Start preparing for Biden’s replacement nominee, because I’m increasingly certain that he will not be the nominee in November.  His poll numbers are too low already, and they’ve got nowhere to go but stagnant or down.  And his physical and mental deterioration are too obvious to be hidden, even by the dedicated gaslighting asshats – or yes, asslighting gas hats – in the MSM and Democrat party. 

The national Dem coven – er, brain trust – can see this just as well as we can.  If you and I are getting more confident that if Trump can manage to even minimally control himself, he’ll win against Biden in November, the Dems know that too.

So they’re going to switch him out, most likely in the summer or at the convention in August. And when that happens, Trump instantly goes from being the younger guy with the lower negatives in the race to the old guy with the highest negatives. 

Therefore, our best course is to keep hitting not only Biden, but the entire far-left Democrat establishment and their terrible policies.  (“It’s not just Biden’s open border, it’s the Dems’ open border; it’s not just Bidenflation and Bidenomics, it’s the economic results of Dem policies.”)

That way, when the Dems swap Biden out, we won’t be totally wrong-footed.  We can just slam the desperate, unprecedented, flop-sweat-infused decision to switch candidates at the 11th hour – and also slam the racist and sexist Dem party for pushing Que Mala aside too! – and quickly pivot to targeting the entire Dem party:

“Changing the frontman for your horrific policies won’t make any difference in the outcome.  Ken Doll Newsom is just Biden with a pulse.”  Or “Big Mike Obama is just Biden with linebacker shoulders.” Or “Hillary Clinton is just Biden with cankles and a terminal case of Resting Beeyotch Face.”

Etc.    

There you have it.  Please print this column out, hand it to a mounted GOP party official, and tell him to get it to Mar-A-Lago, stat.  Then slap the rear end of his horse to get him started.

But first, look carefully to be sure that no Dem congresswomen are around.  Because if the horse’s flanks look too juicy (not my words)… that might not be a horse.     

Finally, in my Wednesday column I suggested a Secret Service code name for Biden (“Flat Line”), because I often amuse myself by thinking up code names for various administration figures. For example:

Que Mala: “Word Salad”

Jill Biden: “Juco”

Liz Warren: “Edgar Winter”  (#wemustneverstopmockingher)

Janet Yellen: “Keebler”

Merrick Garland: “Bullet Dodged”

So as we move into the weekend, let me invite all of you in CO Nation to share your secret service code names for prominent Dems, or Republicans, for that matter.

Hamas delenda est!

Some Weird Stories, + A Weird Naming Challenge (posted 3/4/24)

First up this week, one of my favorite elected conservatives of the last several years is Virginia Lt. Governor Winsome Sears, and I like her for many reasons, some more trivial than others.

On the trivial side, I love the name “Winsome.”  It’s an old-fashioned word – it means “attractive or appealing in appearance or character” – and it fits her very well.  It reminds me of the old Puritan practice of giving their kids “grace names” that indicated virtues they hoped the child would display.  Old fashioned examples include Prudence, Charity or Temperance, but a few survive today, including Faith and Hope.

(My wife and I chose “Emily Grace” for our second daughter’s name, and I’m glad to say that today, on her 22nd birthday, she has not made that middle name sound ironic!) 

Sidebar: I just looked up some examples of eccentric Puritan names, and came across this example that I feel compelled to share with you: “Praise-God Barebone, a lay preacher who became a member of Oliver Cromwell’s last Parliament in 1653, named his son “If-Jesus-Christ-Had-Not-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned.” 

Try writing that on a check!  The writer of the article followed that strange name by observing, “He went by ‘Nicholas.’” 

I’ll bet he did.

On the more serious side, Sears also joined the Marines, and I’m very thankful that she is providing a much-needed example of a high-profile black woman who is smart and dignified, and is worthy of the influential job she has. 

Unlike Fraudulent Fani Willis, dim-bulb anti-Semite Claudine Gay, Jussie Smollett-protector Kim Foxx, or disgraceful hack Letitia James, to name just a few.

Well, there’s now one more reason to admire Sears.  Because she made an honest mistake in a legislative session last week, and then gave the most aggressive “apology” ever for it. 

It happened when Sears was presiding over the legislature, and a sexually confused male senator who calls himself “Danica” asked a routine point-of-order kind of question.  In the process of answering it, while looking through some papers and after calling him “senator” twice, Sears said, “Yes sir,” and then confirmed the answer. 

Now to be fair to Sears, “Danica” is about as feminine as an enlarged prostate, and asked his question in a voice you might hear coming from a barrel-chested high school football coach with a buzz cut urging his d-line to give 110% in the game on Friday night. 

But no matter.  Because upon hearing that, “Danica” flounced out of the room in a huff, and pouted out in the hallway, causing several recess breaks in the proceedings.

Hey, credit where credit is due: that was the most authentically female reaction from a trans dude that I’ve ever seen.

A sexist would say!  I kid because I love!

Anyway, Sears gave an aggressive quasi-apology, which boiled down to, “You know that I didn’t mean to hurt your little feelings, so why don’t we all grow up and get back to business.”   

Still, I don’t like the idea of apologizing at all when you’ve done nothing wrong, a judgement that was immediately confirmed when a bunch of whiny Dems stomped their feet and insisted that such a horrible act can never be forgiven.

If I were advising Sears, I’d tell her to take the podium again and say this: “Since I’ve learned that using traditional English pronouns might cause some fragile House members to have a panic attack, I’ve decided that from now on, I’m just going to point at anyone with a question and describe him or her so that there’s no confusion.”

Then I’d tell her to point to “Danica” and say, “You there, with the linebacker shoulders and the five o’clock shadow in the blue Donna Karan dress, what’s your question?” 

Speaking of sexually confused obnoxious people, Scotland – the land of some of my ancestors – has really dropped the ball (so to speak) on treating sexually confused criminals appropriately.  Which I learned by reading about the case of Andrew Burns, a “notorious prisoner” with “a reputation as one of the UK’s most violent inmates.”

Well Andy is going by the name “Tiffany Scott” these days, and he was going to be transferred to a women’s prison last year, before that was put on hold in the wake of the Isla Bryson scandal.  Which you and I have never heard of.

So I did a little research, and discovered that “Isla” is another dude, and a serial rapist, and he was temporarily housed in a women’s prison, until sane Scots got wind of it and objected.

Still, the Scottish justice system and media seemed determined to cater to Andy/Tiffany’s ridiculous delusions.  They called him “she” and “they” in reporting, and referred to him as “Tiffany Scott” rather than his real name.  After being imprisoned for a long series of violent crimes, prison officials agreed to his demand to be called “Mr. Mighty Almighty.”

Then when he claimed to be transgender so that he could be moved to the victim-rich environment of a women’s prison, the prison bosses took his claim seriously, and started calling him “Tiffany.”

Good lord, man!  You guys used to be a bunch of haggis-eating bad-asses!  You were so tough that the Romans built Hadrian’s Wall and then stayed on their side of it!  You’ve gone from William Wallace (Freedom!!) to Dylan Mulvaney. 

Fortunately, there’s a happy ending to this depressing story, because “Tiffany” died last Thursday, before ever getting into a gals’ prison.  No cause has been released yet, but since he was only 32, I’m going to guess suicide. 

But if his cause of death is determined to be ovarian cancer, I will never stop laughing!  And I will take back everything I’ve ever said about transgender dudes.

Speaking of happy endings, new media reports on Saturday claim that CNN is “on the verge of an epic collapse,” with the “struggling network desperately trying to get out of its death spiral,” beginning with huge pay cuts to its “big name” anchors as their current contracts end this year.

If the report is right, Jake Tapper and Chris Wallace are both getting $8 million per year, Wolf Blitzer is getting $15 million, and Anderson Cooper is hauling down $20 mil! 

With the network getting its lowest-ever ratings, the good news is that those contracts don’t end until after the November election.  So we’re going to have those hacks to kick around for that long at least, with the extra satisfaction of knowing that their audience is so small that their propaganda is going virtually unseen! 

In one last refreshing bit of news, even far-left NYT writer Nicholas Kristoff has admitted on MSNBC that if we air-drop food aid into Gaza, Hamas is just going to steal it.  As part of his commentary, he also said that Israel has stopped the corrupt EU-weenies in UNRWA from controlling food aid delivery because it turns out that at least 12 members of that motley anti-Semitic crew actually participated in the genocidal attacks on October 7th!

One of the most frustrating things about watching the blatantly biased, anti-Semitic MSM coverage of the Hamas war is the obscene moral equivalence they try to apply to Hamas and Israel. There are tons of examples that give the lie to that idea:

There is no Jewish equivalent to Hamas’ barbarity.  No IDF troops have intentionally targeted civilians; no Jewish troops have gang-raped and tortured Palestinian women; no Jewish troops have taken a single Palestinian hostage; no huge street mobs of Jews have celebrated the deaths of civilians by defiling the corpses of raped Muslim women paraded through Jewish cities.

And while malicious lefties have screamed the genocidal “from the river to the sea” chant ad nauseum and all throughout our colleges and all over the world, you’ve never heard a single crowd of Jewish supporters chanting, “All throughout Judea and Samaria, all Muslims should die of malaria!” 

But I don’t want to close this column complaining about our egregiously biased media.  Instead, since my research on Puritan hortatory naming practices has inspired me, let me close with a challenge to Cautious Optimism readers:

In your comments to this column, post your own attempts to preserve that naming tradition by giving Puritan names to our current political leaders. 

To start you off, here are a few examples:

Senator “Her-Skin-is-White-as-Snow” Warren (#verilymustweneverstopmockingher)

Vice President “Oh-God-Why-Hast-Thou-Forsaken-Us” Harris

President “He-Knows-Not-What-He-Does” Biden

or

President “Yea-Thou-He-Walketh-In-The-Valley-of-the-Shadow-of—Watch-Out-For-That-Sandbag!” Biden.

Let’s see what you’ve got, CO Nation!

Also…

Hamas delenda est!

Requiem for a Hooters, & Other Ridiculous Stories (posted 3/1/24)

Sure, our country has problems.  Our president is a barely animated cadaver who maintains what little life-force he has through consuming an all-ice-cream diet and sniffing the hair of young girls.  And our vice president is somehow worse than that guy.

Our borders are open, inflation is running rampant, crime is skyrocketing, and the View is still on the air.   Too many of our young females are trying to turn themselves into males, and too many of our young males are playing soccer. 

And one of our senators pretends to be an Indian, even though she’s as white as a curling competition in Reykjavik.  (#wemustneverstopmockingher)

Yet amidst all that anarchy, there is still hope.  Because some Americans still have their priorities straight. 

For example, hundreds of people gathered yesterday in Charleston, West Virginia to hold a candlelight vigil for a good cause: “To honor a Hooters location that was being demolished to make way for a gas station.”

As I understand it, Hooters is a restaurant chain featuring attractive young waitresses in tight orange uniforms. I can’t say that for sure, because as regular readers may remember, I met my wife in August of 1986, and from that day forward, all other women have become invisible to me.

But I have it on good authority from a friend that AOC could likely get a waitress job there, due to the alleged juiciness of her booty (her words, not my friend’s or mine).  Which would be a win-win, since she would then be running around in orange shorts screwing up drink orders and embarrassing only herself, rather than sitting in our legislature and embarrassing all of us.

Anyway, the Hooters vigil was said to have started as a joke among friends that took off on social media, eventually drawing visitors from several states away.  And some may object that it is a frivolous protest.

But I’d point out that in the very recent past we’ve had hundreds of protests nationwide, most of them for much worse causes, and by much worse people.  Many hordes of peaceful rioters have attacked courthouses and police stations, and burned down entire city blocks. 

Anti-Semitic freaks have stopped speeches on college campuses and besieged Jewish student groups in campus buildings.  A bunch of pro-Hamas Harvard students went on a hunger strike for a whole 12 hours on February 12th.  (I’m not making that up.) 

Morons all over the country routinely sit down in front of cars to tie up traffic for one idiotic cause or another, and many thousands of drivers tragically don’t run over them!

Even here in my free state, yesterday around 100 angry, sexually confused protestors marched around my town and expressed their outrage at legislation that would require FL driver’s license and identification cards to reflect a person’s actual sex.  They carried a giant banner proclaiming, “Let us Live.” 

Which I guess makes sense, since as everybody knows, the leading cause of death for people under 30 is carrying a driver’s license with your actual gender on it. 

So yeah, in the context of those protests, respectfully eulogizing the passing of a Hooters looks like the Boston Tea Party by comparison.

But you don’t have to take my word for it.  Not when you’ve got event co-organizer (and great American) Leo Browning to explain: “For all the naysayers, the doubters, the down-talkers and whatnot.  This building right here was a legitimate iconic figure to the Kanawha Valley.” 

Just in case any of you are still doubtful – and seriously, what’s wrong with you? – the event was also a fundraiser for “a child who allegedly has a very rare disease.” 

Once again, I give you Leo Browning: “One of our close friend’s daughters, she was just diagnosed with a very, very rare disease, and it’s very serious.  If she don’t get help, then she’s not going to be with us much longer.”

“But Leo,” you might ask, if you’re among the naysayers and whatnot, “what disease is it?  And what’s the girl’s name, and what kind of treatment does she need, and how much will it cost?”

I think I can speak for Leo when I say that that sounds like a bunch of doubting and down-talking to me, so mind your business.  

But that story isn’t even in the top 3 most ridiculous stories of the last week.  I’d rank those as follows:

1. Alvin “soft on crime” Bragg, the Manhattan DA and national embarrassment, is outraged because AZ prosecutor Rachel Mitchell has not agreed to extradite a murderer from NY who fled to AZ and was captured there.  Mitchell would rather hold the killer there with no bail, rather than send him back to Bragg, who has a habit of letting killers out immediately, with little or no bail.

Bragg said, and I swear I am not making this up, that Mitchell was engaging in “grandstanding… plain and simple, old fashioned grandstanding and politics.  That should have no place in our profession.” 

Bragg is also the guy who is trying to prosecute Trump for the non-crime of paying off a porn star, and then trying to elevate that to a felony because he says that it was done to cover up a second crime.  Except that his charging documents didn’t say what that second crime was, which drew attacks even from leftist Trump haters.

But if there’s one thing that sticks in Bragg’s craw, it’s old fashioned grandstanding and politics!

2.  The leftist hacks at Google spent a quadrillion dollars on coming up with an AI program that spent 20 minutes on the market before being deluged in a flood of mockery when it turned out that it would not produce an image of a white person, no matter what a customer asked for.

People asked for an image of a pope and got an Indian lady and a black guy.  A “Founding Father?”  Black guy in a powdered wig.  An Indy 500 winning driver from the 1930s?  Black gal in a racing suit.

It was so bad that a request for an image of a Viking produced an Asian woman and a black guy wearing furs and armor.  Because you remember all of those history shows about Genghis Thorson and Attila the Swede. 

3.  A dope at CNN explained that Christian Nationalists – who she insisted are very different from Christians, though she didn’t explain how – are dangerous, creepy and delusional in part because – get this! – they believe that our rights don’t come from Chuck Schumer or Cocaine Mitch McConnell, but from God. 

No one at CNN knows any better, so the segment went fine.  But that night, conservatives bombarded her with emails quoting the first sentence of the preamble to the Declaration of Independence.

She got as far as “endowed by their Creator…” before she dropped everything, googled “Declaration of Independence,” and then read on, in growing horror.

Wait until she googles “Founding Fathers” and finds out that they weren’t a bunch of transgender black vegans in powdered wigs and old-timey clothes!

Let me close with a couple of more schadenfreude stories.

First, the Disney corporation, currently 0-15 against DeSantis and the conservatives of America, have racked up another “L.”  Because another top Disney exec is out of a job. 

This time it’s Sean Bailey – not be to be confused with George Bailey, who actually enjoyed movies (famously hollering, “Merry Christmas, movie house!”) – who was shown the door at the Mouse House (correction: Mao’s House) this week.

He was the big brain in charge of all of the live action re-makes (that you didn’t see) of old Disney movies.  Because Disney’s only new ideas in the last 15 years have been to push “a not-so-secret gay agenda,” attack Ron DeSantis, and re-fashion Snow White into “Snow Brown and the 7 Racial Grievances.”   

Wooh. Let me catch my breath.  Between the laughing, and the going around the Cape of Good Hope to stretch for that “It’s a Wonderful Life” joke, I’m gassed. 

Coincidentally, Disney CEO Bob Iger is facing a serious takeover attempt, and has sold off around 80% of his Disney stock over the last year.  Next up: he’ll re-retire to “spend more time with family.”  

Finally, a couple of columns ago I mentioned Rob “Meathead” Reiner’s incredible theological insights (synopsis: Marx is the lord your god, and you shall have no other gods before him).  His “documentary” (and never were scare quotes more justified) “God and Country” was released a couple of weeks ago.

Well, despite getting a ton of super-positive reviews from every leftist media outlet in sight, and “an avalanche” of free publicity before it opened, and 100% positive reviews from viewers on Rotten Tomatoes, it opened to a dismal $38,000!

Unexpectedly!

For comparison, that’s about the amount one man (his name rhymes with Schmunter Hiden) spends on an average weekend of partying, including the cost of the hotel room, the cocaine that he snorts off the rear ends of various hookers, and the costs of the aforementioned rear-end-rental!

So how did it manage to get so many positive Rotten Tomatoes reviews? 

I didn’t say that there were a lot of reviews, only that they were ALL positive.

Or, in this case, BOTH of them were positive.

That’s right.  According to a RedState story dated 2/28, two people paid to see Meathead’s magnum dope-us (you see what I did there?), and then wrote one rave review each.

The only thing that could make that outcome funnier would be if the studio that financed and released that disaster were Disney!

Have a great weekend, everybody.  And don’t forget…

Hamas delenda est!

Schadenfreude Stories of the Week (posted 2/26/24)

Today I’ve got a lot of feel-good stories of leftists receiving their just desserts, but I want to start with a case study of how putting on ideological blinders can make you stupid.   It involves Bill Maher. 

If you’ve seen his HBO show or stand-up specials, you know that Maher can be an obnoxious and condescending leftist.  But he’s also a smart guy who often sees through woke idiocy and calls it out, willingly taking criticism for doing so.  His old show Politically Incorrect (1993-2002) often lived up to its name, when it wasn’t (ironically) being politically correct.

But even though I think he’s earned the incredibly rare description of “intermittently insightful leftist,” his politics cause him to have some shocking blind spots.  A while ago, for example, Dave Rubin was his guest when Maher was berating Trump for being an “election denier.”

When Rubin pointed out that Cankles Clinton had spent much of Trump’s term blaming various conspiracies for her loss and calling Trump an “illegitimate president,” Maher was shocked at the idea, and blatantly denied that she’d ever said that.  

How can you explain such a ridiculous statement from someone who has made his living by being hyper-aware of political bias, other than to call it an act of self-inflicted ignorance?

Last week he did it again.  He had Ann Colter on, and he started a discussion of the shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs’ parade by saying, “We don’t know who did this shooting, by the way.”

Colter drily said, “We have some idea.” Maher said, “What?” and she said, “If it were a white man shooting, we’d know.”

Maher insisted, “We don’t know,” and when Colter gave recent examples of non-white shooters being underplayed, Maher was incredulous.  “You think they’re repressing that reporting?”

After a little more back and forth, Colter confidently said, “The longer they go without telling you, it’s not a white male.”

Maher responded by rolling his eyes and sarcastically saying, “We don’t know… [but] you know, because you have special powers.”

Annnnddddd… it turns out (after several more days of MSM obfuscation) that the shooters are black.

Unexpectedly!

If I’m reading Maher correctly, I think he could actually pass a lie detector test on that question: he authentically seems to be unaware of the obvious and consistent bias in virtually all MSM reporting on race, and especially on crime!

How can that be?  One of the oldest political jokes I know has to do with a typical MSM headline announcing an imminent extinction-level event: “World Ends Tomorrow: Women and Minorities Hardest Hit.”

Similarly, every crime story either becomes the object of obsessive focus and exaggeration or is ignored, depending on the race or politics of the perps and victims.  Jussie Smollett’s risible hoax about Trump fans in Chicago nearly lynching him is the biggest story in the country… until the truth becomes clear, and the media slinks away.

Violent thugs like Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin and George Floyd die in the process of committing more crimes, and they are transfigured from recidivist criminals into saints and martyrs. 

Meanwhile white kids like the Covington Catholic schoolboys are confronted at the Lincoln Memorial by an aggressive American Indian weirdo (rumors that he is Liz Warren’s brother have not been confirmed, but still, #wemustneverstopmockingher), and they stay calm. So the media smear them as entitled white aggressors harassing a morally pure “person of color.”

Or how about Kyle Rittenhouse, the racist vigilante who went on a killing spree against innocent black civil rights protestors?  Except that he’s not racist, and not a vigilante, and the guys he shot were all white sex offenders who attacked him, and deserved every bullet he fired in self-defense.   

I could go on and on, but I don’t have to, because we all know the truth.

Except for Bill Maher, apparently. 

It’s really depressing to recognize how many of our fellow citizens – and voters! – really believe the propaganda the media has been feeding them.  But it’s especially so when a guy as smart as Maher, and who has a high profile job that entails obsessively following national politics, is totally blind to the most basic realities of American politics in 2024!

Ugh.  Enough with the bring-down stories.  Let’s take a quick look at a few stories of lefty follies from the past week.

First up is our Cadaver in Chief.  How bad has it gotten for Dems trying to find something positive to say about Joe Biden’s campaign?

This bad:  When Biden was doing a photo op at a Mexican restaurant in Cali, several people inexplicably wanted to take a selfie with him.  (My guess?  They were each hoping to get the last pic with a US president before he died, the creepy vultures.)

As he was posing, he pushed a button on a customer’s phone to switch it to selfie mode.  And the Biden campaign actually put this out as part of a statement: The customer was “surprised POTUS knew how to do that.” To which the Corn Pop Slayer responded, “After the last guy, the bar’s on the floor.”

I know: the campaign considered that shot at Trump a shining example of witty repartee.  But they buried the lede by sliding right past the telling, hilarious detail:  This is what it’s come to! When Joey gaffes manages to press the right button on a cell phone, a potential voter was surprised he could pull that off!

Look for the following puff-piece stories in coming days:

  • Voter in a public bathroom when Biden came in reports that Biden was able to use the urinal correctly.  Voter shocked! 
  • During a photo op at Denny’s, Biden ordered something close enough to barely be recognized as a “Grand Slam Breakfast.”  Waitress flabbergasted!
  • Physician arrived at the White House in the morning to do a routine check of Biden’s vital signs, discovered that Biden had continued to carry out such autonomic functions as respiration and a semi-steady heartbeat overnight.  Doctor stunned!

That’s our president, people.

Meanwhile, lefty media outlets continue to get blasted like Sonny Corleone at the toll booth in Godfather I.

I’ve already laughed about the closure of Jezebel and the Messenger, the firings of Brian Stelter, Fredo Cuomo and Don Lemon, and the job cuts at the LA Times, WAPO and CNN.  Now we can add Vice Media to the list.

Vice was valued at almost $6 billion in 2017 – I’m assuming by socialist accountants who dusted their peyote with crystal meth whenever they did an audit – before they filed for bankruptcy and were sold last year for $350 million. 

Now reports say that they’re trying to sell off a publishing business and fighting rumors that their entire site might disappear because they’re struggling to pay their monthly server bills.

Who would have thought that being dishonest partisan hacks and smearing half the country for years on end would end in tears?

Speaking of which, BuzzFeed is another media outlet that has been diligently searching for the alchemical recipe for turning malicious, dishonest socialism into profits.  It bought an entertainment media brand called Complex for $300 million shortly before going public in December of 2021, and for the next year, its stock price hovered around $10 a share. 

Its recent price is $21 dollars per share, which I would think is a good indicator of—

No, wait.  I misread that.  That’s supposed to be $.21 per share.  As in 21 cents. 

As in, you’re in the drive-through at McDonalds and they ask if you’d like to supersize your fries, and you say, “Yes, but I don’t have any more cash on me.  Would you take three shares of BuzzFeed stock to make that a large fry?”

And the teenager in the paper hat would say, “No.”

So BuzzFeed announced more layoffs, and it just sold Complex for $108 million.

Now I’m just a simple country English professor, so I don’t claim to understand the complex world of high finance.  But if our resident big financial brains – CO and Chris Silber – could help me out here…

Isn’t buying an asset for $300 million, and then selling it a few years late for $108 million what you’d call “buying high and selling low?”

And that’s not a good thing, right? 

It’s not just behind-the-scenes lefty media types who are getting hit with the reality stick.  Unfunny comedian Jimmy Kimmel has announced that he’ll likely be retiring at the end of his current contract. 

I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that his ratings (and those of lefty scolds Colbert and the Daily Show et al) have crumbled, and ads on his show are bringing in 41% less than they were doing 4 years ago. 

Maybe I was a little hasty in calling Kimmel “unfunny.”  Because THAT is hilarious!

Finally, there are also some positive signs coming out of Gaza, where a Palestinian official is claiming that, “Hamas’ leadership is planning to remain in the besieged Gaza Strip and carry on their fight against Israel to the end.”

Sources suggest that three top Hamas leaders – one Mohammed (Deif), one Marwan (Issa), and top dog Yahya Sinwar, whom I am calling “Yahoo Serious” (look him up), because his name is equally stupid, and it amuses me – are all still in a part of Gaza that the IDF has not yet invaded. 

They are supposedly determined to stay there and fight to the death.

Which means that this situation presents the terrorists and the good guys with a rare opportunity for bipartisanship.  Since they want to die fighting, and we want them dead, this sounds like a win-win to me. 

So here’s hoping those three stooges have the life expectancy of BuzzFeed, Vice Media, and Joe Biden.  

Because as always…

Hamas delenda est!

Lawfare Is Looking Shaky, & Some Military Bad-Arsery (posted 2/23/24)

I know that the worst of the elite left is cheering that the corrupt NY judge and evil Letitia DeVille have run their banana republic lawsuit scam on Trump, and he’s now on the hook for almost half a billion dollars to get it eventually overturned. 

I’m so outraged and disgusted by that sham trial – and the other three! – that I can’t think straight, and I can’t add anything to the story that others here have not already said.

Except that I hope that the huge middle of the electorate – the independents, the casual and semi-apathetic voters, the RINOs and the mushy centrists – is paying enough attention and is sane enough to recognize the blatant corruption of the Dems, and punish them for it in November.

In the meantime, I wish that I had Trump’s ear, so that I could encourage him to stay focused on the important stuff.  He’s already got us in the conservative base with him, and he’s got a slight lead in the polls.  He just needs to remember the old political cliché: “When your opponent is decomposing before our eyes, stay out of the way.”

(I’ve paraphrased that slightly.)

For example, when the Hur report came out last week and Biden decided to stumble out and prove that he is tickety boo, mental-function-wise, he made things infinitely worse.  He yelled at the clouds, insisted that of course he knows what year his son what’s-his-name died, and bragged about how he got the president of Mexico to open the Panama Canal so the Gazanians could go see the pyramids. 

For the next 24 hours, the lefty establishment went to Defcon 4, insisting that the Hur report didn’t say what it said, and you didn’t see what you just saw.  

A flop-sweating lineup of MSM empty heads and Democrat hacks mumbled that sure, when he’s on camera Biden’s got the gait and demeanor of Bela Lugosi on horse tranquilizers, and he speaks like Ozzy Osbourne after a Fetterman-esque stroke.   

But behind closed doors, the guy cavorts around the Oval like Fred Astaire at the height of his powers!  When he talks foreign policy, it’s like Benjamin Disraeli and Metternich had a baby.  And his enunciation!  You remember when Professor Henry Higgins was trying to teach diction to Eliza Doolittle?

It’s like that!  Biden is at the top of his game, we tells ya!  He stands astride the world like a modern colossus!   

Trump should have pulled a giant, gilded throne up next to that media dumpster fire and roasted marshmallows over it, wearing a big Cheshire cat grin and saying nothing.

Instead, he got in front of a camera and said that he told our NATO allies that if they didn’t pay for their own defense, he’d tell Putin to do whatever he wanted to them.  Then he insinuated that Nikki Haley’s husband may have left her, saying, “Where’s her husband?  Where is he?”

Why?!

It doesn’t matter that he’s right about NATO’s recent under-funding of their own defense.  Many dumb and uninformed people think Trump is too friendly with Putin.  Of course, they’re wrong!  But is it helpful to say that?

And spoiler alert: Haley’s husband is in the Army National Guard, and is deployed overseas.  Which is irrelevant anyway, because you’re beating her by 30 points in her home state, and she’ll soon be out of the race.  There is no reason you should even say her name again.

Especially since Biden is out there throwing up on his shoes three times a week, and the media is dying to cover ANY story other than that!   

Please, Mr. President.  Don’t give them any other stories.  We all know that they hate your guts. Don’t make their job easier!      

Now onto happier news.  And there really is some.

We seem to be turning the corner on the recent trans madness, with more and more pushback against the groomers and narcissistic activists.  The first of what will surely be a tidal wave of lawsuits have been filed against docs and hospitals that have done mutilating and sterilizing surgeries on kids who later realize what was done to them.

And if common sense and the Hippocratic oath hasn’t stopped the butchers yet, gigantic financial judgments against them will likely do the trick.

Even though our borders are still disastrously open, the decisions by Abbott and DeSantis to send the illegals to big blue cities and states is causing just the opening battles of blue-on-blue warfare that is going to be schadenfreude-tastic to watch.  And if we can get Trump back in the White House, he’ll have a lot of support to reverse course immediately.

In fact, when it comes to fighting illegal immigration, City Journal (which I recommend to everyone) had a recent article proving how laughably wrong the leftist Cassandras were when they attacked DeSantis’ tougher immigration law SB 1718, which took effect last July. 

The law invalidated driver’s licenses given to illegals by blue states, required hospitals to quantify uncompensated care given to illegals, and forced employers to use E-verify to check new hires’ legal status. 

Of course the lefties tore their garments and gnashed their teeth, predicting that Florida’s workforce would plummet by at least 10%, and the economy would crater.  The state Dem party chair warned that, “Ron’s ‘woke’ war will cause prices to increase on all goods and services,” and other hysterics wailed about the inflation that was sure to follow. 

Annnnddddd… the opposite happened.  Unexpectedly!

Florida’s economy grew by 6 % in the third quarter, the population growth since then was 2nd in the nation, and food shortages and inflation never materialized.

I mean, other than the commonplace nationwide inflation caused by…Bidenomics!

You might think that birthday boy CO and I, as two of the state’s most influential citizens, spend a lot of time conferring on such economic issues, perhaps over expensive cigars and Kentucky’s finest bourbon. 

But you’d be wrong.  Because CO sent me a text last week, and it was about something far, far cooler: the recent hellfire missile strike that our military used to take out a smelly terrorist chieftain in Iraq earlier this month. 

Did I mention that the missile in question was one that used six gigantic flying blades rather than the usual explosives, and that it is called “the flying ginsu”?!  (I know: how can a country capable of that kind of awesomeness be losing a shipping war to a ragtag bunch of Houthi pirates?)

(You know the reason: Bidenomics!)

So the Iran-backed leader of Kataib Hezbollah, Abu Baqr as-Saadi, was riding in a car when a missile dropped onto his car, with the aforementioned flying blades being released right before impact.  Thus turning his car into a convertible, right before turning as-Saadi into “a-Salad”.

Yes!  The Flying Ginsu!  It slices, it dices, it circumsizes and it beheads!

More please.

Finally, you probably haven’t heard about this, but a great American died at the age of 74 on February 12th.

His name was Chuck Mawhinney, and he was the deadliest Marine sniper in Corps history, with 103 confirmed kills and another 216 probable kills during his 16 months in Vietnam.  

His biggest single day was, ironically enough, Valentine’s Day of 1969.  He took up a position along a river that a platoon of Viet Cong wanted to cross, and he picked off 16 of them, persuading the rest to retreat.

Nine days later, he turned 20!    

According to news stories, after the war he lived quietly, working for the forest service and fathering three sons, and not even telling his wife about his sniper service. It wasn’t until a fellow Marine sniper wrote a book mentioning him in 1991 that he got his first public attention.

His obituary contains many indications of what a great man he was, starting with the fact that, “His friends, neighbors and co-workers had no idea that the soft-spoken man had killed at least 103 enemy combatants.” 

(Just like the mild-mannered Kiwi I met in Europe who had urinated in Hitler’s bathtub in the Eagle’s Nest, Mawhinney was no braggart.  As opposed to, say, I would be, if I had done anything anywhere near that cool.  “Hey, I know you’re just doing an oil change for me.  But have I mentioned that I killed several hundred commies in Vietnam?  And that I pissed in Ho Chi Minh’s bathtub?”)

In what turned out to be the last year of his life, Mawhinney was approached by a writer named Jim Lindsay, who got him to agree to let Lindsay write a book about him.  That book came out recently, and it’s called, “The Sniper: The Untold Story of the Marine Corps’ Greatest Marksman of All Time.”  

And it is the next book that I will be reading.   

“He listened to other people tell their stories,” said Lindsay. “He never told his story. Nobody knew he’d been in the war or what he’d done.  He was a good man.  He was a good father, a good husband and an asset to the community. He was a pretty cool cat.”

Indeed.  We should all be so lucky to have an obituary like that.  Plus, he killed between 103 and 319 Communist soldiers!

RIP,  Charles “Chuck” Mawhinney.  Semper Fi.

Also, a very happy birthday to the Founder of the Feast, our very own CO!

Also, as ever…

Hamas delenda est!