Author: martinsimpsonwriting

One of the many contributions to Christmas traditions made by the great German people – about which, more below – is the dark twin of St. Nicholas known as Krampus.  He’s a demonic-looking creature, with cloven-hooves, horns and fangs, and while St. Nick passes out toys to the kids who have been nice, Krampus punishes the kids who had been naughty. 

I don’t know if I’m the first to notice this, but I think the lefties who get elected to national office usually think of themselves as a bunch of Santa Clauses, when they are in fact a horde of repugnant Krampi.  (And if you ever got the chance to see Repugnant Krampi open for Black Sabbath in the early 70s, you know what a treat that was!)

They start out promising toys and treats for the citizens they see as dependent children – “Have some free college and free healthcare, and abortions and reparations for all!” – but the mask soon slips, and their big bag of toys turns out to have been filled with a whole rain-forest’s worth of monkey’s paws. (Three paragraphs in on this one, and I’m already all over the road with the odd references.)

Free college turns out to be an immiserating grievance study degree and terminal unemployability.  Free healthcare turns out to be obscenely expensive, and men have to pay for pap smears while women wait 5 trimesters to get in to see an obstetrician, and every treatment is rationed, and in the meantime, take two leeches and call the ER in the morning.

Abortions are a recipe for regret and loss, and reparations would be the seeds of needless and unjustified racial enmity and social devastation, were we ever foolish enough to start down that road. 

One question I go back and forth on is, “To what extent are the lefties aware of the damage their policies do, and will do?”  On the one hand, most of my Dem friends are primarily well-intentioned, though they are subject to the same temptations to self-delusion and demonizing their opponents as we all are. 

On the other hand, it beggars belief that they can remain unaware of the results of their policy prescriptions, after they have been tried and so thoroughly failed, all around the world.

Their battered-voter syndrome relationship with socialism is just one case in point, with the Chinese spy story being just the latest example.  It’s not just Eric Swallwell who couldn’t resist the lure of that Wang Dang Sweet Fang-Fang.  (I know.  That’s one of my least favorite Ted Nugent songs too, but I’m not mature enough to resist a joke when it’s teed-up like that!)

One leftist influencer after another has gotten starry eyed over one horrendous socialist dictatorship after another. You can go all the way back to shortly after the Soviets started their doomed experiment in repression, starvation, and murderous, progressive good intentions, and you’d already find American leftists lining up to defend the growing socialist death tolls.

Walter Duranty got a Pulitzer for praising Stalin’s glorious leftist vision, while managing not to notice millions of rotting Ukrainian corpses stacked up all over the countryside.  Later, Communist spy Alger Hiss — despite having the name of a Dickensian villain, and reams of evidence against him — never fell out of the left’s affections.  Hanoi Jane did her photo op with the Viet Cong, and one actor and celebrity and leftist pol after another has pimped for Castro; one of them narrowly lost the Dem presidential nomination in each of the last two election cycles, and another is currently running for Senate from GA.   

January 5^th is the 11^th day of Christmas, and we all must do everything we can to encourage the voters of Georgia – and whoever is in charge of aggressively poll watching (as much of a grim joke as that seems to be right now) – to counter the socialist Krampus, and save the Senate.

In one last political note, Joey Gaffes continued his DiMaggio-esque string of consecutive teleprompter sessions with at least one howler of a faux pas, this time when he was announcing another cabinet pick.

Saith the Slurring Scrantonian, “For Secretary of Health and Education Services, I nominate Xavier Bakeria… Busherra, excuse me.”

In that one moment, Biden went for the gaffe hat-trick, making three errors in one sentence.  A sentence which was – this seems almost cruel to point out – written for him on a teleprompter!

First, there is no department called, “Health and Education Services” (he meant health and human services).

Second, Bakeria is either:

1. A dance craze from the 90s which featured hip-wiggling young women, synthesizers, and repetitive chorus of, “Hey, Bakeria!”
2. One of the portly Italian minor characters whom Tony Soprano had to kill in Season 4 – I think his first name was “Bobby.”
3. An STD common among Chinese honeytrap spies; there’s a topical ointment that should clear that right up, but you don’t want that genital bakeria going untreated!

The person Biden was actually nominating is Xavier Becerra (pronounced “buh-ser-uh”).

The third error was when Biden took another shot at it, calling him “Busherra.”  Which sounds like a reference to the time when either Bush 41 or Bush 43 was in office: the Bush era.    

Of course, the main issue is not whether Biden mangled the nominee’s name — that’s going to be happening A LOT!  It’s whether the nominee is a good pick.

Spoiler alert: you know he’s great, because he’s been the Attorney General of California for three years, and that place is running like a well-oiled machine! 

I mean, if the machine in question is engineered to produce wild fires, brown-outs, bankruptcies, rampant crime, and the flight of as many productive people as can get hold of an outbound U-Haul.

So, yeah.  Biden is picking his dream team, and it looks like it’s going to be Krampi, all the way down!

On a more Christmas-y note, I’d like to thank CO nation.  In your reactions to last column’s request for recommendation for Christmas music, you all came through, reminding me mostly of old favorites that I’d forgotten (Nat King Cole, Dean Martin, Mannheim Steamroller, the Wyndam series, and more), plus a few that were new to me (the Piano Guys, and various versions of old favorites that I hadn’t heard). 

In the course of starting to work those into my Christmas rotation this year, I remembered a few other favorites of my own.  Sting had an album of atmospheric, winter- and/or Christmas-related songs called “If On a Winter’s Night,” that’s worth a listen. 

Another favorite is not specifically Christmas-oriented: it’s a duet in front of the pope, sung by what looks like a Russian orthodox priest and a young girl, singing the Lord’s Prayer in the language of Christ.  Which – though I think of Him speaking in King James-era English — is actually Aramaic.   The young girl is beautiful, with a sweet voice, but when the male singer comes in… I get goosebumps every time.   

Though I was raised Baptist, I joined a Lutheran church when I met my Norwegian-descended wife, and I’ve come to love a lot of the ritual of our church, none more than when we sing Silent Night by candlelight each Christmas eve.  My favorite part is that we sing one verse in German.

Because there is no greater gulf between a song’s message and the language of its singing than the gentle sweetness of that hymn and the dulcet tones of… German!  You haven’t heard audible cognitive dissonance until you’ve heard the harsh, back-of-the-throat, vaguely Beowulf-ian consonants of “Stille… NACHT!  Heilige NACHT!  Alles schlaft, einsame WACHT!”  

But I have a soft spot for most things German — sure, there are a few blots on the record, not the least of which is a certain socialist worker’s party we could all name – and not just because my mom’s side of the family is German. 

Many of our Christmas traditions owe a lot to Germans, and earlier pagan, Germanic types.  The Christmas tree is Germanic, as is the snow globe.  The advent calendar is another German contribution.   In addition to the advent calendar on our wall, and the one with little chocolates in it, last year my wife started another Simpson Christmas tradition by getting me an advent “calendar” consisting of various small bottles of wine for each day of December leading up to Christmas.

Because of my iron discipline and the fact that the bottles are portioned out by date, I am enjoying them all, without risking the possibility that I’ll end up stumbling around and slurring my speech like Biden announcing his new Attorney General pick.

Finally, six years ago tonight, my dad died.

I know, that’s a whiplash-inducing shift in tone.  And it sounds like the start of a Christmas tale involving spirits and moral lessons, like a variation on A Christmas Carol (which I’m going to write a little about in my next column).

And I guess it sort of is, though without any momentous drama.  I had the great gift of spending a lot of time with him in his last months, and being alone with him at the moment of his death, my mom having gone to bed just a few minutes before. 

And it happened like I imagine it would have happened for the reformed Scrooge: very peacefully, as a fitting coda to a life lived gratefully, and with a calm assurance of where he would be waking up, and that he would be mourned by a lot of people whose lives he’d touched.   

Until he saw them again.   

Because I’m too much the sarcastic, snarky type, I can’t end a column with anything that sweet.  So I’ll just say…

Avenatti/Bobby Bakeria 2024!

Two weeks from today is Christmas, and that always makes me happy.  We’ve finally got some cool weather in north Florida, and my wife and I have put up the tree and decorated the house.  (There’s a new pic up of Stately Simpson Manor at Martinsimpsonwriting.com, if you’re interested.) The youngest daughter got back from her first semester at college. (Is it unseemly bragging to mention that she got a 4.0 GPA in her first semester? It is? Fine.  I’ve got two smart kids, so sue me.)

This season always makes me nostalgic for my Illinois childhood, and the snowy winters that are easy to romanticize when you don’t have to live with dirty snow and sleet that hangs on until the end of March.  These days I always make at least one 4-day weekend trip up to see some snow and some cousins each winter, and I am already looking forward to that. 

In the meantime, I’ve got a two-computer-screen set-up in the home office, and I always have a video playing on the second screen of a winter cabin with snow falling outside and a fire in the fireplace.     

Music has always been a big part of this season for me, too.  I know that many in CO nation are not Christians, so if this stuff bothers you, please skip down a few paragraphs and join me in the secular mockery and good cheer…

If you are a Christian, or someone who loves good music regardless, I have a few recommendations –and hope that you all will have a few for me, because I always love coming across good music.

First, old school stuff:  if you like classical and don’t love Handel’s Messiah, there’s something wrong with you.  We always hear the Hallelujah Chorus excerpt, and there’s a good reason for that: because it’s freaking amazing!  I swear that if I didn’t speak English and heard just that chorus, and someone asked me what that piece was about, I’d say, “Christ, obviously!”  

I’ve got a soft spot in my heart for a 10-year-old flash mob performance of the chorus in a mall food court, which you can easily find on Youtube.  Turn that one up loud.

(By the way, do you notice how, whenever anyone in public is blasting out music, it’s never any good stuff?  It’s always some subliterate, bass-heavy monstrosity with the n-word assaulting your eardrums.  Just once I’d like to see somebody driving down the road blasting some Handel or Bach!)

I also love the old carols – God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, O Come, All Ye Faithful – preferably done by a brass quartet. 

For some cool, quirky versions of old carols, try Sufjan Stevens and his odd banjo and acoustic guitar versions of “O Come Emmanuel,” “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming,” “Come Thou Fount,” “I Saw Three Ships,” and, “Once in Royal David’s City.”   He also introduced me to a 17^th century French carol called, “Bring a torch, Jeanette, Isabella.”  His version is really odd, and sounds like it was recorded on a cell phone in the stairwell of a concrete parking garage.  But I love it anyway.

Two years ago when I was looking for some snowy scenery videos, I came across a contemporary singer named Audrey Assad.   She’s got a beautiful voice, and the first videos I found were beautiful, too.  I’d recommend starting with “Abide With Me” and “Even Unto Death,” but a particular favorite of mine is “I Shall Not Want.”  (Joe Biden can tell you: the palmist gets a co-writing credit on that one.)   

But with all of the good memories associated with Christmas, I know that this is also a very sad time for many people.  Nostalgia can be a lot more bitter than sweet, if you are reminded of better times — and  loved ones — that are gone.  My dad died 6 years ago next week, and that has given this season a little bitter to go with the sweet, for me.

This year, politics has added some bitterness to the season as well.  As much as I wasn’t a fan of Trump at first, I came to really appreciate his governance, and his persistence in the face of a relentlessly hostile and petty media.  To see how much good he did in his four years, and to see him (as it appears now) replaced by the Scranton Shuffler is indeed a bitter pill to swallow.

But I think there are real reasons for optimism, even in politics, as we head into 2021, and I’ll be writing about those in coming weeks.  At this time of year especially, I’m reminded of our tendency to invest too much meaning in politics, and to give it too much power to affect our mood, and our view of the world. 

Yes, our politicians have too much control over our lives.  And especially if you live in a blue state where they are especially relentless, you may have to move.  But we all need to maintain an internal locus of control to the extent we can, and realize that our actions in our house are going to affect our lives more than decisions made in the White House. 

Yes, it would be nice if our politicians weren’t a hindrance and an obstacle.  But as obstacles go, they’re pretty pathetic.  Some of them seem truly malevolent – the ghouls running Planned Parenthood, the racists among BLM, the nihilistic thugs in Antifa – but mostly they’re just small people, and boneheads, and broken in ways that, but for the grace of God go we.   

We should be praying for them.  But also doing everything we can to thwart their efforts.  And part of doing that – luckily for me – is mocking them.

So let me end with a story that came out this week, and that you are probably already following.   It’s a story about a Chinese spy and alleged honey-trap seductress who goes by the name Fang Fang.  (She’s the spy so nice, they named her twice!)  She is supposed to have had affairs with two Midwestern mayors.

Which proves an axiom that doesn’t require proof, at this late date: men are stupid. 

Because at least two lumpy guys staying in budget motels and driving city-provided Ford Focuses looked in the mirror and said to themselves, “You know who would really go for my dad bod, and my mayoral clout from running a town she’s never heard of?   An Asian cutie half my age!”

But the icing on this commie-in-a-cocktail-dress story is that ol’ Double-Fang also had her hooks into Democrat numbskull and laughing stock Eric Swallwell.

Let me just put my wizard hat on, and I’ll predict what was on the phony dating site profile that she used to snare Swallwell:

• A picture of her in a schoolgirl outfit with a short skirt, making a peace-sign gesture, for some reason.
• Description: “I’m a sweet, submissive Asian girl, looking for a big American man who understands that America is a terrible country that needs to be fundamentally transformed.”
• Turn-ons: Low IQ, flatulence
• Turn offs: mean people, integrity.’
• And that worked.  On a US congressman! 

And that worked. On a US congressman!

So be of good cheer, because that’s what we’re up against.

Avenatti/Fang-squared, 2024!

Look, I know that we’re all trapped in this unsettling political interregnum, waiting for what looks like a verdict from the electors saying that Biden is the next president.  And then for January 5^th, when we are all praying that both – or at least one, please God! – of the GOP senate candidates defeat the horrible Democrat choices, thus holding the senate, and allowing us to thwart the worst of the damage that Democrats will be able to do over the next two years.      

But as grim as our political situation may temporarily be, I am going to live up to the name of this FB page, and point out some reasons to be optimistic, during this season of eternally renewing optimism.

First, elected Democrats are promising to give us plenty of fodder for mockery and schadenfreude, and to give voters many reasons why they should be thrown out in 2022 and 2024. 

Consider the many high profile Dems who have already been caught piously forbidding the deplorable regular people from eating out, or enjoying a holiday, or getting their hair done, or leaving the house… right before they’ve been caught doing all of those things, to the disgust of every sentient constituent.

Governor Ken Doll in CA gets caught at a fancy French restaurant (What did you expect, a Texas style steakhouse or BBQ joint?) living it up in mask-less frivolity with… wait for it… several top-level CA health officials, who had recently scolded normal people for wanting to eat out. The day after Newsom sucked up the snails, San Francisco Mayor London Breed went to the same Le Doucherie – which is a fake French word that I just made up, but which I think sums up the hypocritical leftist clientele at that place quite nicely.

(By the way, if I were trying to come up with a name for a horse to run in the fifth race at Churchill Downs, I could do a lot worse than “London Breed.”)

Austin Mayor Steve Adler (from guess which party) recorded a message telling the little people not to leave their homes… from Cabo San Lucas, where he’d taken a private jet to attend a wedding!  He actually said the words, “Now is not the time to relax.” 

From Cabo San Lucas!  One of the most relaxing places on earth.  (If he had a single honest person working for him, that person would release a correction: “What Addled Adler meant to say was that it’s not time for YOU to relax.”)

The mayor of Denver (guess which party!) who outlawed indoor dining was also caught dining indoors, and without a mask.   San Jose mayor Sam Liccardo (guess!) dropped a pre-Thanksgiving tweet admonishing the plebes about letting their masks down, and eating with others. 

Beginning the a-hole count down now:  3… 2… 1.

Annnnnnnd the next day he had Thanksgiving dinner with 7 family members from 5 different households.  He issued a written apology noting that CA rules permit only 3 households at a gathering. 

In his defense, he’s a Democrat in charge of a municipal budget.  So you can’t expect him to know the difference between 3 and 5.  Or the meaning of humility.  Or his Schumer from a hole in the ground. 

Mayor Beetlejuice of Chicago has already been caught – after doing a PSA telling citizens that it would be the height of selfish vanity to go out for a haircut – when she went out and got a haircut.  And everyone who has seen the mayor immediately thought, “You went to someone who cuts hair – for money, as a profession.  With a straight face. — and you came out of there with THAT?  Did you not have a pair of rusty scissors, or a reciprocating saw, or a weed whacker, or perhaps a scarred and dull hatchet, or scythe?” 

Second, the likely president (shudder) Biden is going to take second place to no one when it comes to providing us with mock-worthy material.

For example, you may have heard that he has already tapped Jen Psaki — Not like that!  Get your mind out of the gutter, those who have heard Tara Reade’s story, and assume that Biden is as piggy as he is alleged to have been before! – as his press secretary.

Hilarious side-bar: the MSM has been falling all over themselves praising Biden’s all-female communications team as, and I quote, “the most diverse team ever!”

For the second time in a month, let me refer to the Princess Bride: “You keep using the word “diverse.”  I do not think you know what it means.”

Note to whoever is taking messages for Joe, as he naps in a shawl, dreaming of that time he bested Corn Pop in a bicycle-chain fight:  Picking an entire staff of gyno-Americans means that your staff has no more diversity than would an entire staff of phallo-Americans.  Especially when, intellectually speaking, their thought processes could be no more lock-step and blinkered than that of Hillary when they attached those huge, black blinders on either side of her head when she cantered out of Wellesley with a degree in leftist group-think, with minors in agit-prop and Alinsky studies.

Anyway, Biden picked Jen Psaki.    Now I happen to know – because I am a worldly, sophisticated type – that Jen’s last name is pronounced “sak-ee.” As in, “Please give me your largest bottle of sake, because it looks like Joe Biden is going to be president, and I need some strong drink to drown my sorrows.” 

In other words, the “P” in “Psaki” is silent.

I know that you see where I’m going with this, so I’m just going to cut to the chase.

In a few weeks, Biden is going to clump out of his basement in his boot – which he’s only wearing because he totally broke his foot while vigorously wrestling with his dogs, not while he was doing that “old man shuffle” across the floor and fell down, then lay there like a Mitch McConnell on his back, feebly wailing, “someone help me up!” until his Jamaican care-giver showed up.  And he said, “Jill, is that you?” 

And she said, “No, Mr. Biden.  It’s me, the person who keeps rescuing you when you wonder into a corner and can’t get out, and who also looks nothing at all like your elder-abusing wife who insists on being called “doctor” even though she’s not a real doctor.” 

Where was I?  Oh yeah: cutting to the chase.

Just before Christmas, Biden – not trusting himself to read a holiday message off the teleprompter – will introduce Jen thusly, “Here’s Jen Paki, with a reading from the Palms.”

Okay, I had planned to move this column in a more uplifting direction, but I just read a story about AOC that I MUST comment on.  So I’m going to save my  more uplifting thoughts for a new column in a couple of days, as I turn to: the greatest tweet of December! (so far)

Earlier this week, AOC was throwing a tantrum about the high cost of college, and how it’s not fair to expect that college students or their families pay for college.  Or for health care, either!  And her car is two years old, while all of her friends’ parents bought them new Beamers, and her parents don’t know what it’s like when all of your friends are so judge-y.  And yes she WILL get that tattoo and those piercings, because you’re not the boss of her! And as soon as she gets back to her swanky, taxpayer-provided DC townhouse she’s going to play her music as loud as she wants, all night long!

As you might guess, a bunch of people more mature than her – i.e. anyone over 12, and about half of those between 5-12 – pointed out that she was being an entitled brat.  And also that it might have been better if, when she first started stomping around and pouting this way when she was still an actual child, her parents had unsnapped the back of her footie PJs and tanned her behind and sent her to bed without supper.   

Also, some critics may have mentioned that her work experience before going to Congress and trying to create an educational system from the ground up was as a waitress and bartender.  And that when you ordered a scotch and soda with a twist from her, you were equally likely to get a Pine-sol and Listerine with a lemon lifesaver in it.

And that’s when Seething Sandy unleashed this beautiful tweet:

“Republicans like to make fun of the fact that I used to be a waitress, but we all know if they ever had to do a double they’d be the ones found crying in the walk-in fridge halfway through their first shift b/c someone yelled at them for bringing seltzer when they wanted sparkling.”

Beginning entitled a-hole countdown:  3… 2… 1

Annnnnnnnnd everyone over 30 blasted her relentlessly. 

Joni Ernst mentioned that she had worked on the biscuit line at Hardees… when she wasn’t working on her family’s hog farm, or on construction jobs.  Also she spent some time running convoys in a combat zone in the military.   Michigan rep Paul Mitchell cited “working numerous doubles in Respiratory Therapy where a mistake could result in death.” 

Dana Loesch’s husband (lucky dog) said, “The actual physical laborers you want to have pay for everyone else’s college tuition would like to introduce you to physically difficult jobs. You have no idea what those words mean till you have done hot tar roofing.”

My personal favorite reply came from Chris Manning: “I waited tables for 3 years. It’s not a physically difficult job. Digging trenches for sewer lines in the 95-100° summer heat was a difficult job. Pouring concrete and laying block in the summer in Phoenix was a physically difficult job. Waiting tables was cake. Sit down Sandy.”

After a day to think about it, the best AOC could come back with was this:  “These Republicans who are defensively rage-tweeting “But you’re wrong! I worked my way to pay through college!!” don’t realize they sound like folks who speak of the days when Hershey bars were 5¢ at the general store.”

Said the ditz who enthusiastically supported Bernie Sanders, who was bumming penny candy from strangers outside the Nickelodeon when he was her age, and who still waxes nostalgic over the good old days when the Bolsheviks were giving what-for to the Mensheviks.

This is going to be an interesting two years!

Avenatti/Beetlejuice Bowl-Cut 2024!

As my favorite month of the year starts, I am still experiencing a lot of angst about the prospect of a possible Biden administration, and mostly limiting my exposure to media, as I try to focus on the important things in life. 

And yet what little I’ve seen of the news tells me that the left is determined to provide us all with plenty of fodder for mockery and verbal abuse.

For example, you may have seen Joe Biden’s Thanksgiving message, in which he definitively answered the question, “Hey, is Joe Biden a Biblical scholar, or what?”   (Spoiler alert: the answer is “or what.”)

In an otherwise nice enough – and even touching – bit of an anodyne holiday message, Biden provided a little Thanks-gaffing, when he referred to the “palmist.”  Actually, what he said was that, “We can prosclaim the palmist… [long pause] … with the palmist who wrote…”   And then he went on to cite the 28^th Psalm.   

First, we all know that the “P” in “Psalm” is silent, and the “s” is pronounced, and Joey Gaffes went the other way.  But I get it: English is weird.  A “p” can be silent (psalms, pneumonia), and so can an “h” (honor, homage) and even a “k” (knight).  The same word can be its own opposite (sanction means to approve of, and to condemn).   

Brett Favre can spell his name “fav-ruh” and yet everyone will pretend that that “r” comes before the “v.”  It’s a crazy language.

But c’mon man!  You’ve got two “p” words in the same phrase, and you whiff on both of them?

Also, before I forget, did anyone hear “palmist” and immediately think of a Jeffrey Toobin joke? 

No?  It’s just me?  Fine.  I get it: you’re all soooo much more mature than me.

Anyway, I’m not a medical professional, so I’m not going to prosclaim that Biden is mentally deteriorating before our eyes.  Because “prosclaim” is not a word, and that would be crazy talk.  But the guy’s got some issues.   

I’m not arguing that this new gaffe is the end of the world, or gives deep insight into Biden’s soul.   But it does give us one more example – following several million others – of the way the media treats the lefties that it loves vs. the conservatives that it hates. 

Trump was no divinity student himself, as was obvious when he referred to “two Corinthians.”  But you may remember that he was roundly mocked for that, by a bunch of lefties who despise the kind of deplorable evangelicals who take the Bible seriously in the first place.

So will Biden be mocked for not knowing how to pronounce one of the most famous books of the Bible? He will not.

Because, in the words of the Psalmist (in the Martacus translation):

“The MSM is Joey’s shepherd; he shall not be mocked.

They maketh him to lie down in his basement, and ignore his still intellect.

They restoreth his electoral viability; they leadeth him through the primaries for their ideology’s sake.

Yea, though he walks through the valley of the shadow of dementia, he need fear no tough questions; for the MSM art with him, their social media and bias, they comfort him.

They preparest before him a bouncy house to protect him from his GOP enemies: they anointeth his empty head with a mask; his manufactured votes runneth over.

Surely good news and censorship shall follow him all the days of the election: and he will dwell in the White House for ever.  Or at least until Comma-la pusheth him aside.”

Please feel free to embroider that and hang it in a place of honor in your house.

In other news, the other half of the disastrous Bama/O’Biden administration has come out with yet another memoir, and it’s as obnoxious as you would expect. 

By the way, do you remember when Barry repeatedly referred to the “Marine Corps” and “corpsman” as “corpse” and “corpse-man?”  Remember how the MSM lambasted him for knowing less about our military than the average 4th grader who watched Hogan’s Heroes and part of Band of Brothers? 

Me neither.

But back to Barack’s book, “America Continues to Let Me Down,” or “You Americans Weren’t Worthy of Me,” or whatever the title is.  (Life is too short to spend even 10 seconds to look that up!)

This is Obama’s THIRD autobiographical book.  The first two were written before he had accomplished much more than becoming a corrupt Illinois state senator, and then an empty-suit US senator for 10 minutes.  So naturally, after having served as a mediocre, race-baiting US president, he had to write a third navel-gazing tome. And it comes in at a staggering 1, 567 pages! 

I can’t vouch for the accuracy of that page number.  But I’m sure that if you were forced at gunpoint to read it – the only way I can imagine reading it (and even then, I’d really consider whether death by gunshot was such a terrible option) – it would seem to be at least that long.  I read several pages of excerpts from it, and they all seemed about 100 pages each.

Anyway, consider this: I’m about the same age as Obama, and my life has been the stuff of legend.  Just the story of how I closed on the hottest wife in Christendom with no more than my pedestrian looks and job prospects – by itself – could be a bestseller!  Not to mention the tales of my exploits in house renovation, Wonder-Dog ownership, epic-daughter-siring and multiple almost-successful campaigns for People Magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive” competitions.

Heck, just gathering my Cautious Optimism columns into a series of leather-bound volumes would make more of a contribution to human progress than all of Obama’s banal, mendacious speeches, put onto DVDs and given to the Queen of England in the worst example of diplomatic gift-giving protocol since the Greeks gave the Trojans that stupid horse.     

And yet I haven’t written even a SINGLE memoir! 

Anyway, it’s not surprising to see that at this stage in life, Obama has still learned nothing about the world outside himself.  His creepy memoir, with its race-baiting America hating and ignorant smugness gives yet more proof – as if any were needed – of what a small-minded, petty little man he is.  And how unfair it is that Trump’s outward bluster and disdain for his opposition got him branded as an uncivil, barbaric Orange Hitler, while Obama’s smoothly glib manner gave a paper-thin sheen of class to the seething anger and contemptuous pettiness that has always had a prominent place in his character and thinking. 

So Obama continues to be terrible, and Biden continues to melt like the Wicked Hillary of the West when hit with a bucket of agua.  But how are the down-ballot Dems behaving?

Hold onto your hat: like utter morons!

Consider the case of many high-profile Democrats’ reaction to last week’s righteous killing of evil scientist and father of Iran’s nuclear program, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.  (As in, “that assassination team really Fakhriz’ed him up!”) 

Any reasonably well-informed American knows that the Obama-Iran nuclear deal was a third-degree cluster-friend.  It involved giving the jihadi freaks running that malign theocracy billions of dollars and free reign to pretend that they’d delayed their nuclear development, while actually going full-speed ahead with their nuclear efforts to achieve their dream of wiping out the state of Israel.

So when the Israelis conduct this amazing raid right out of a Tom Clancy novel, and give evil Mohsen F his “Mohsend-off“ (boom!), the only acceptable reaction from an American politician would be to open a bottle of brown liquid and launch into a raucous celebration to a medley of, “The Ride of the Valkyries,”  the 1812 Overture, and “Hava Nagila.”

But how did the Democrat brain trust react?  Always-wrong Ben Rhodes, up-talking jihad-enthusiast Ilhan Omar, and Chris Murphy (for whom Murphy’s Law was named, I’m guessing) all criticized… wait for it… Israel! 

And John “Worst-CIA-Director-Ever” Brennan – still not emotionally recovered from Trump’s excellent droning – “so beautiful!  Totally justifiable strike!” – of Iranian terror leader Qasim Soleimani – snarled that, “This was a criminal act and highly reckless.  It risks lethal retaliation and a new round of regional conflict.” 

Think about that!  After decades of being threatened with annihilation by a violent jihadi neighbor, Israel pulls off an incredible, targeted strike against a strategic nuclear mastermind, and our Democrats are outraged at Israel.

Ugh.   These people don’t deserve to be in charge of a highway clean-up program or a lemonade stand, let alone US foreign policy!    

Okay, so maybe this column was a little more righteous anger than Righteous Brothers.

But we still live in America, and Christmas is coming, and my next column is going to be a lot more upbeat.  In the meantime…

Avenatti/Soleimani… um, Fakhrizadeh… make that Ilhan Omar 2024!

Today I answer the eternal question: how do you write a column about current events after you’ve spent about 10 days assiduously avoiding any events that could be considered current? 

First, start with the strength of 10 men, because your heart is pure.  Which I happen to have.  So, check.

Next, add in a dusting of iron willpower and discipline.  Which I sort of have.

Thus, I’ve tried to contain most of my net browsing lately to watching videos of happy and non-political things.  Like couples making birth announcements or twins announcements to their families.  And faithful dogs welcoming their masters back from long military deployments.  And people giving obscenely large tips to servers at restaurants, and adult kids surprising their parents by paying off their mortgages, or giving an aged dad his dream car.

All of those are good for making you appreciate life.  Also drinking a little scotch or bourbon – neat, because I’m not a savage — watching some football, eating a good meal, and walking a wonder dog.  Though not necessarily in that order. 

But on reflection, there’s not really a bad order for those.  So go nuts.

Finally, realize that you can never be completely unplugged from current events, because sometimes a tv can blare some unwanted news as you are passing through a room, and before you can shoulder-roll into the next room, scaring the cats, even as you stick the landing.  

Or your computer can betray you, and on your way to looking up the score for the Ravens-Patriots game or checking the weather forecast, a pop-up can assault your senses with, “AOC said Something Stupid Again,” or “Pelosi Won’t Give up the Speaker’s Gavel until the Dems Pry it from her Cold, Mummified Hands,” or “Biden Tries to Leave Transition Meeting, Gets Stuck in a Corner, Janitor Finds him when he’s turning out the lights.”

And you find yourself right back in “2020: The Year of Endless Groin Kicks.” 

I still need a little more distance from this election to have any super-cogent thoughts about it.  But I do have a few semi-philosophical musings, for what they are worth.

First, it’s a cliché because it’s true: this too shall pass.  If (as seems nauseatingly but almost certainly the case) Biden does take office in January, he immediately becomes the lamest of ducks.  He doesn’t seem a day over 120, with the mental sharpness of Howard Hughes when he was in his “walk around the penthouse wearing tissue boxes for shoes” phase.  When he steps down – my money is on “keels over” – Comma-La steps in.

In terms of political skills, she’s a human toothache, and will not wear well.  And the fratricidal warfare between the ultra-left and the far-left power bases will likely produce the highest deservedly-injured-bad-guy-body-count on both sides since the Iran-Iraq war.  As long as Cocaine Mitch still has the Senate – please God, in the name of all that is good and holy! – he can sit back in turtle-y sanguinity and watch the impotent rage on the other side, and wait for the mid-terms.

Second, we’re likely to get a vaccine shortly, and that should finally end this enervating twilight that we’ve been suffering through in our public life.  We should do our best to be sure that Trump gets credit for enabling this amazing accomplishment, even as the MSM does their best to pretend it was brought to us by socialized medicine.  I first thought of insisting on calling it “the Trump Vaccine,” but then Andrew Klavan quoted one of his listeners with “MAGA-cine,” which sounds pretty cool.  

So spread the word: the Flu Manchu has been whipped by the MAGA-cine.

Third, I’m heartened by the number of Americans who are resilient, and who resist the creeping leftism in their communities in ways various and sundry.  I like it when Californians tell their governor that he can stuff his Thanksgiving restrictions, and when Americans all over the country respond to leftist gun-grabbers’ disdain and hatred by buying guns, and then defending themselves by shooting Biden voters who break into their houses.

And I love it when hard-working taxpayers get fed up and move out of kleptocratic blue states, leaving behind an increasingly immiserated stew of the base that far-left national Dems have been cultivating: the untreated mentally ill, violent felons, racial arsonists, malevolent trust-fund Antifa body-piercers, professionally useless grievance-studies graduates, and the terminally work-averse.    

Trendsetting great-escapers include the entire crew at the Daily Wire (leaving CA for TN and FL), Joe Rogan (leaving CA for TX), and CO (leaving IL for FL).  One of my favorite recent examples was described by Jerry Powlas in the American Thinker; he is leaving Minneapolis after almost 50 years.  His closing lines are a gem of clean, clear writing: “We are moving out of the state to a town so small that you have probably never heard of it.  We are moving to a state where the governor respects the Constitution and the Bill of Rights within it.” 

“No, I’m not flaunting this.  There is no challenge in my words.  But where we are going, nobody wears masks.  And everybody has guns.”

Amen, Jerry Powlas!

Fourth, the MSM has so exposed and beclowned themselves that I think it’s going to be difficult to put that bad-faith genie back in the bottle.  Their credibility ratings are lower than they’ve ever been – right down there with pollsters, climate change predictors, and Harvey Weinstein.  And I feel like I should apologize to Harvey for sticking him in with that group. 

They looked like snarling, partisan Quislings in the run-up to the election, and when their sleazy Orwellian mendacity resulted in an undeserved victory, they’ve spent the aftermath looking like a hundred Toobins caught mid-Zoom-meeting. 

Neither of which are good looks, to say the least.

Speaking of polling, the geniuses at the Cook Political Report (by no means the worst of the bad lot of pollsters) had rated 36 house seats as either “solid Democrat,” “likely Democrat,” or “lean Democrat.”  The GOP took 7 of those.  Even better, guess how many of the 27 house seats the Cook Report rated as “toss-ups” were won by Republicans?

Try all 27!    How’s that for a Princess Bride moment?  “You keep saying ‘toss-up,’ but I do not think you know that it means.”

If there were any justice in the world, in three months the folks at the Cook Report would all be short-order cooks in the same tavern where AOC would be screwing up drink orders.

I’m encouraged that outlets like the Daily Wire and the Blaze and Parler are stepping up to try to fill the gap left by the betrayal of free speech and thought by our media giants.  And I’m more grateful than ever for little oases of clear thinking, good conversation and good cheer like the one we’ve all found here at Cautious Optimism.  So raise a glass to CO and to each other, and toast to better times that are already on the way!

And what better way to end a scattered, semi-coherent column like this one, than with a stupid joke that I find funny anyway:

A guy goes to a zoo, only to find that the place is nearly empty.

The only animal he eventually finds is a small dog.

And he suddenly realizes that it’s a shih-tzu.

Avenatti (he’ll be tanned and rested!)/Divisive, Far-Left Loon-to-be-named-Later, 2024!

Boy, are these national Dems smart, or what?  It turns out that they made all kinds of prescient statements about what was going to happen on election day and afterwards, and they were much more accurate about that than they’ve EVER been about any policy issues. 

For example, were you able to keep your doctor?  Or your health plan?  Did those shovel-ready jobs overwhelm your local community?  Did raising taxes produce economic growth and prosperity?

But when they talked about the election, they were spot on.  Remember when Joey Gaffes said that they’d developed the most extensive voter fraud network in history?   We all assumed that that was yet another of the Senile Scrantonian’s “brain Swalwells” (if you catch my reference), but what if – against all odds – he was actually expressing a true and cogent thought?

I mean sure, that was the quiet part that he wasn’t supposed to say out loud – which would be par for Biden’s miniature (IQ) golf game – but still.

Or remember when many slimy Dems warned that on election night, it may SEEM that you’re seeing a Red Wave and a Trump victory. But just wait until our troglodytic partisan hack vote manufacturers have a week or two to get behind closed doors, and fondle and massage and give the ol’ “Biden handshake” up the skirt of the results.

Sorry, that’s “vote counters,” not “vote manufacturers.” 

No, wait.  I was right the first time.

Anyway, if you didn’t know better, it’s almost like the Dems and MSM are ethically stunted, corrupt-to-the-core, dishonorable adamschiffen, and – in the words of a previous president, speaking about white nationalists and neo-Nazis – “they should be condemned totally.” 

I am really rooting for a high-profile legal battle in each of the battleground states where obvious leftist chicanery affected the election.  The way it looks right now, I don’t think Trump is likely to be able to reverse the momentum and be certified as the winner of the election.  But he’s a fighter, and this is a battle that needs fighting.

Even if he doesn’t win it, the whole nation needs to see the dirty tricks and sleazy tactics used by the Dems around the country.   And a few contrasts can be easily drawn.  Florida and Ohio are perennial battleground states, and the crooked polling predicted that Biden would win both by around 3-4 points; instead, he lost both by around that much. 

More importantly, those states have competent GOP governors (I’m not a huge fan of DeWine, but DeSantis acquitted himself especially well.), and they ran a transparent, smooth election, with clear rules that were clearly followed.  They were able to count the ballots and announce reliable vote totals on election day, the way it should be done. 

The contrast between those states and the colossal cluster friend of corruption and brazen cheating that happened in Dem-run cities and states is stark.  And it should be instructive, to anybody who isn’t blinded by partisanship: one party is competent and transparent, and the other is a bunch of Machiavellian crooks who shouldn’t be trusted to run a lemonade stand, let alone a great nation.

As we’ve seen during the peaceful riots over the last many months, the left really does have an army of partisan hacks at their disposal, and that army was out in force during the election.   In the big blue cities – you can recognize them even from a distance, by the stench, the screaming, and the plumes of smoke ascending into the sky from multiple arson fires — they man the polling stations with corrupt officers supervising the counting, questionable corporals doing the counting, and corrupt foot-soldiers “observing” the counts, half of whom seem to focus more on forming a picket line to block GOP observers.

Hey, wait a minute.  Do you think the Scranton Speech-Slurrer might have been trying to say “dog-faced poll-y soldiers?  If so, it’s yet another rare instance of him making sense. 

Because when you kick poll watchers out, and even after they return with a judge’s order, bar them AGAIN … you’re a lying, dog-faced poll-y soldier.

When you plaster over the windows of your vote counting area to prevent people from seeing what’s going on inside… you’re a lying, dog-faced poll-y soldier.

When you change the rules on the verge of the election to accept ballots received many days after the election — as in PA, and as was attempted in WI, and possibly elsewhere, for all I know – you’re a lying, dog-faced poll-y soldier.

When you are confronted with undisputed data documenting  large disparities from any previous election – 30% more ballots than cast in any previous election, blocks of votes coming in that are all or nearly all for one candidate (impossible even in the deepest red or blue voting area), more ballots cast than there are eligible voters – that are statistically IMPOSSIBLE, and your response is to first clamp both hands over your ears, begin loudly singing “Imagine,” and then perform a cranial-rectal inversion so that you are physically unable to hear anything? 

You, sir or madam, are a lying. Dog-faced. Poll-y soldier! 

And for people who claim not to have anything to hide, you sure seem to be trying to hide an awful lot.

My favorite early example of the kind of characters that Biden will choose to surround himself occurred when he named creepy Zeke Emanuel – of the creepy Emanuel brothers – as one of his main covid advisers.  Which is entertainingly ironic.   Because Emanuel published a piece a few years ago arguing that he hoped to die at 75, and that all people should do the same.  (We’re bad for Gaia, and the climate, and the economy, or something.) 

Think about that.  77-year-old Joe Biden has chosen a health adviser who has argued that it would have been better for Joe Biden to have assumed room temperature 2 years ago.   (Assuming that he didn’t, I mean.)

Okay, so even a stopped clock is right twice a day.  That’s one point for you, Zeke!

But the obnoxious post-election behavior has not been limited to just the left.   You’ve probably seen the video of Fox News’ Sandra Smith, reacting to a Trump spokesman’s factual statement that the election isn’t over until the results are certified and confirmed by the electors.

Smith didn’t know that she was on camera and a hot mike, and she reacted with a sour expression, saying, “What?  What is happening?  Like, Trace, we’ve called it.”  

That’s not the way it works, Sweet Pea! 

And if you think it does, why don’t you trot on over to the copy of the constitution that I’m sure you keep in your desk drawer, and peruse that baby, and get back to us when you find the clause that states that an election is not called by a gathering of electors after any disputes have been legitimately adjudicated, but by a collection of entitled people whose main qualifications for their jobs is that they can read a teleprompter and either have reasonably symmetrical features or look good in their underpants!

By the way, I have reasonably symmetrical features, and I used to look fantastic in my underpants, until I was forced into quarantine for 7 months, and I put on the dreaded “Covid-19” (pounds).  So can I just declare that Biden has lost?  And while I’m at it, I’d like to declare that Imhotep Pelosi must have a stake driven through her mummified heart, and then be transported back to her ancestral homeland and buried beneath the northeast corner of the pyramid of Cheops? 

Because if so – and let me clear my throat and do my best Yul Brynner here – “So let it be written … so let it be done!”

Do you realize what this means?  There might be another Sandy out there to challenge Sandy Ocasio Cortez for the coveted title of “Most Undeservedly Arrogant and Uninformed Sandy in the Western Hemisphere.”

Avenatti/Zeke “the Grim Reaper” Emanuel 2024!

 Note: this column was drafted before the last 24 hours, and under the assumption that there’s not much chance that Trump’s appeals can prevail and give him an electoral college victory.  That assumption seems a little shakier this morning.  Accordingly, all of the thoughts that follow are therefore tentative, and as long as there’s any chance of electoral college victory, we should fight until that chance is gone!

I need to talk to some Germans, and find out if there is a word for the opposite of schadenfreude – i.e. misery at witnessing the joy of creepy morons celebrating an misbegotten victory.  If there is such a word, I need to know it immediately, because I’ve got a third-degree case of it.

If there is no such word, my German friends need to step it the friend up.  Because if they’ve come up with schildkrote (“shield-toad,” i.e. turtle) and a word that means, “you’re not wrong, but you’re still an a-hole,” they should certainly have a word to describe the combination of heartsickness, nausea and intestinal distress that is the only rational reaction to watching the national Dems being happy.

We’re still a great country, and we will be able to withstand the motley crew of malicious ignorami (Latin plurals – they still comfort me!) who can’t wait to storm into office in January.  Especially if we can hold onto the senate, we can blunt most of the worst damage they are dying to do.  After that, we’ll need to do everything we can to be the loyal opposition, and fight them over every bad move they make. 

And work with them if they ever accidentally propose something that is actually good.  I’m not holding my breath on that front, but we’re cautious optimists, right? 

Also, it’s good to remind ourselves that there are many good liberal Americans out there: folks who (though they are wrong about politics, IMHO) love this country, and aren’t comfortable with blatant fraud and lawlessness.  (I hope that they’ll be much more vocal about that in the coming days and months!)

We don’t want to inadvertently throw those metaphorical babies out with the sewer water. 

Er, bath water.  (So sue me: I think of Schiff and the squad and CAW CAW and Schumer, and my mind invariably goes to waste disposal.)  

Trigger warning: I’m about to wax philosophical, and for me, that involves some God talk.  For those of you who don’t care for that type of thing, no problemo.   Feel free to skip down to the end of the column, where you’ll find some secular consolations (I hope!).

One of my short suits has always been the “turn the other cheek” part of my faith.  I tend to get angry at bad behavior — and bully, lying and cheating are three of the varieties of said behavior that enrage me  the most.  So you can imagine the way I’ve been stomping around and cursing the national Dems and their perfidious schemes this last week.

You can believe me when I say that this does not come naturally to me, but I’m working through ways to appeal to the better angels of my nature, and of yours too.

I understand the temptation to throw off the bonds of civil and moral behavior, and sink to Leftist hacks’ level.  If they have so obviously cheated and lied and stuffed ballot boxes and all the rest, I can almost get to the point of arguing that we should do the same.  The ghost of Machiavelli – whom I teach on a regular basis, and who always strikes me as simultaneously brilliantly correct and repugnant! – whispers to me that taking the high road while our opponents cheat will ruin us.

But then I go back to my moral lodestone, Uncle Jesus, who looks at me with love while also boxing my ears.  (My image of Him is a little eccentric, I’ll admit.)   And He says, “What will it profit a man if he gains the White House and both houses of congress, yet forfeits his soul?” 

And because I’m only as He made me, I immediately think of saying something sarcastic like, “Well, one profit would be that the green new deal won’t destroy our economy, and we might not be at the mercy of an incompetent socialist cabal of ex-bartenders, ancient Egyptian mummies who won’t die, and arschaffen as far as the eye can see…” But He gives me a look that suggests that another ear-boxing is on the way if I don’t zip it.

And then He says, “Verily, thou art hilarious – and just between us, one of My personal favorites — but I’ve got this.  Their victories are fleeting, and I’ve laid before them metaphorical acres of rakes, so behold as they go forth and stomp on one after another of them.  Rejoice in the spectacle of their self-delivered karmic head-thwackings.”    

“Also, remember that testing makes you stronger.  If the Jews could survive the pharaohs, and Samson could survive Delilah, and Bears fans could survive the McCaskey family, surely you can survive a few years of moronic governance.”

And before I can say, “Technically, Samson didn’t actually survive—” He says, “Yeah, yeah.  I was just checking to see if you were paying attention.   And by the way, what’s that thing you say about Elizabeth Warren?”

“#wemustneverstopmockingher’?” I say.

And He says, “That’s it!  We all love that.  Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull are up here – the theology of that is a little tricky, but I’ll explain it when you get here – and they could not stop face palming when she came out with that DNA test.”

“I knew it!” I say.  “But she’s supposed to be made in Your image too, right?”

“Oy, don’t ask.  That’s another one that you’ll have to be here before you understand.  Anyway, I’ve got to get going.  I’ve got some birds of the air and beasts of the field to watch over, and I’ve also got to reassure the Israelis that I’m not going to let Biden bumble them back into another intifada.   Plus, tonight Tom Petty and John Prine are putting on a concert, and for the first time, Eddie Van Halen will join them on guitar.”

“Also, your dad says hello, and that he knows what happened in the election, but he can’t bring himself to care about it, because he’s together with the rest of the family, buoyed by the joy that passeth understanding, and looking forward to seeing you again.

Also, he doesn’t want to give things away, but Foles is not a long-term answer at quarterback for the Bears.  Which is more consequential than Joe Biden, but still, not so much.”

And, scene. 

Okay, so I’m no theologian.  But I think I’ve got the details pretty close.

I realize that this column may have been rough sledding for those of you of a different faith or no faith.  But I meant what I said before the election: there is more to life than politics, and becoming as degraded as they are will not help the country, and it will do great moral damage to ourselves.

So let me leave the agnostic or atheist among the CO nation with different words of encouragement.  

If you appreciate Nature – but are not sold on Nature’s God – consider again our wide world beyond politics. 

Uncle Jesus may say (through Paul, IMO), “Whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—think on these things.”

To paraphrase the Big Man, “Whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, and whatever things can help you get your mind off of the MSM, Hollywood and the Left, think on those things.” 

Turn off the tv, avoid news of politics for a while, and think of whatever comes to mind when you think of Nature’s greatest gift to you.  (For me, that was meeting a piping hot 21-year old Norwegian-American girl, and pulling off the most miraculous four-bank carom shot in world history by tricking her into falling in love and marrying me, lo these many years ago.   But your mileage may vary.)

Take a walk in the early morning, or at sunset.  Closely watch a housecat playing or resting: does he trouble himself with Joey Gaffes’ incipient mental deterioration, or the outlook for the economy in 2021?  He does not.  (For the cynical among you, okay: he probably wouldn’t trouble himself if you had a massive heart attack and keeled over right in front of him, either.  But still.  He’s not a dog, so don’t hold him to dog-level standards.) 

Go through a vigorous workout, and then lay on your back on a sunny patch of grass, and feel the tingling in your muscles and the breath in your chest, and look at the sky.

If you have a few bucks and can spare some time, take a trip to the mountains, or walk in some snowy woods.  Think of a thoughtful gift for a loved one before secularist-defaced Christmas makes it mandatory.  Write a thankful letter to different people in your life – I can guarantee that they haven’t received one of those in ages, because no one writes letters anymore, since John and Abigail Adams died.

If you’re still feeling down after all that, I’ve only got one other idea for you: Go to Martinsimpsonwriting.com, where you’ll find a new picture of Cassie the Wonder Dog, sitting and smiling at you. Look at those beautiful brown and blue eyes, and that adorably cocked right ear and happy smile, and tell me you don’t feel better.

Comma-la/Avenatti 2024!

This is going to be a tough column to write, because the election obviously didn’t go as we’d hoped. 

Which is a polite way of saying that I can’t get this taste of bile and ashes out of my mouth!  As I wrote before the election, the polls were so far in Biden’s favor that it was hard to believe that they could be that wrong.  But there were so many signs that Trump had so much momentum, and Biden is such a stammering, mostly-dead gaffe machine, that I couldn’t bring myself to believe that he could win.

So now we’re here in purgatory.  I’m 100% convinced that if we could somehow eliminate all the voter fraud in this election – even if only in the half-dozen battleground states that will decide the issue – Trump would win.  I’m also about 99% convinced that there’s no way to achieve that, given the nature of the fraud.  Once ballots are submitted and counted, there is no way to tie them back to the scammers  or dead or fictional people who cast them.  Even if we manage to uncover evidence of widespread voter fraud in a few states, it would likely take something like a completely new vote there to resolve that, and I don’t think that can ever happen. 

I have purposely tried to avoid following events since election night very closely, just because of how heartsick I am to powerlessly watch as the GOP victory margins in several states are slowly, irrevocably eroded and then reversed right in front of our eyes. 

Which is not to say that I will attribute all close losses to fraud.  Allowing mail-in ballots that arrive after election day to be counted is ridiculous, and an invitation to fraud; by the same token, those rules were in place in many states, and I think many legitimate votes were cast in that way.  (Along with a lot of fraudulent ones!)   

To be honest, we won in 2016 by razor-thin margins in a handful of states.  If 100K or so votes could have been shifted around in about 4 states, Hillary would have won.  (Shudder!)  What I fear right now is that Biden may well narrowly win this time, and the same will be true: 100K votes shifted in just one or two states could have reversed that outcome. 

But I think that cheating is involved this time, unlike last time – and that makes all the difference in the world.   On the other hand, I am so biased, and have such disdain for the national Left and our execrable MSM – but I repeat myself – that I can’t even trust my own judgment at this point!

Having said all that, I’ll harken back to the wise words that a wise man once said: “If Biden does win tomorrow, I’m going to have some dark days for a while.  But not too dark, and not for too long.  Because life is too short to make politics the center of it.”

Okay, you’ve got me: that wise man was me, and I wrote that on Monday.   

And so far, that timeless wisdom has stood the test of time… for the intervening four days.  The last several days have been pretty dark, and I expect some more of those to come, especially if the Senile Scrantonian ultimately becomes the president.

On the other hand, am I going to put my head in my hands and weep, saying, “I don’t know what I’m gonna do,” until the Godfather – in this case the great and powerful CO – slaps me in the face and mocks me, saying, ‘You can act like a MAN!”

I am not.  Because this website is called “Cautious Optimism,” not “Cautious Let-me-put-a-gun-in-my-Mouth.” 

So let me look on the sunny side, and list a few silver linings in this potentially very dark cloud:

1. As of this writing, there is still a (very) slim chance that Trump will eventually win.  And if that happened, it would be the most delicious political victory ever, eclipsing even the glorious shock of 2016.

2. If we can manage to hold on to the anxiety-producing 51 seat majority in the Senate, we will have blunted the worst effects of the agenda that the far-left cabal using Biden as a dim-witted ventriloquist’s dummy were planning to inflict on our country.

3. The MSM is left standing knee-deep in crap, their clothes covered in it and their faces smeared with it, wearing a feces-bedecked dunce cap.   Their bias has been totally exposed, their polls were dishonest, and they’ve proven themselves to be absolutely without honor and unworthy of any trust or confidence.  I spit on them, metaphorically.  (And, if I get within spitting distance of one of them, literally.)

4. The Dems had a terrible night, mostly because they had bought their own propaganda.  They really believed that there would be a blue tidal wave: they expected to take the Senate, add to their lead in the House, and to gain state legislatures that would allow them to gerrymander in this crucial census year.

Instead, despite the fact that we had to defend twice as many senate seats, we may have narrowly held the Senate, and we actually gained house seats and state legislatures. They spent hundreds of millions of dollars to unseat Lindsey Graham 2.0 and Cocaine Mitch, and both of them won easily.  If Biden does win, it will be by the narrowest electoral college vote ever, and their dream that the monstrous Trump of their imagination would be decisively repudiated by the people did not come true.   

My home state – and the new home state of CO – came through like a champ.  Trump tripled his margin of victory in Florida from 2016, and carried with him several new House seat victories. 

5. The short- and mid-term future for conservatives looks brighter after this election.  Trump’s improved performance among black and Hispanic men and women suggests that the racist identity politics at the heart of many Democrats’ strategies might not be the winning gambit that those cynical creeps expected it to be.       

Trump’s personal example has also revealed a template for future victories, for any in the GOP who are wise enough to learn from it.  After years of effete wimps and go-along-to-get-along RINOs, Trump’s willingness to fight has been bracing, and produced outsized wins in advancing a conservative agenda.

Even his flaws are instructive, and encouraging.  It will not be hard for future GOP candidates to be more disciplined than Trump, and for them to deploy targeted instead of omni-directional punching, because a lane is wide open for a pugnacious but controlled conservative.  Trump has also revealed how much the media and the far-left agenda are hated; they are both easy targets, and the public will clearly support someone who attacks and opposes both. 

6. Finally, the Dems are in utter disarray, and as a snarky mocker of leftists, I’m going to be reveling in a target-rich environment!  There have already been some vicious intramural attacks on the left and in the media; the leftist Dems are furious with the far-left Dems, and they are at each others’ throats.  Already! If they don’t take the Senate, they will not be able to accomplish many of their long-desired schemes, and that will drive them even further up a wall.

On top of that, Biden and Comma-la have both been absolutely terrible candidates, and they promise to be absolutely terrible presidents.   If they eventually win, it’s only going to be after a bruising fight that will reveal clear corruption by state Dems – the PA and Philly machines are already beclowning themselves, with more obvious hackery to follow. 

If Biden does get inaugurated, it’s going to be as a tainted, morally compromised candidate with no popular mandate, and half the country dug in to oppose every leftist proposal he makes.  Not to mention that he is on the verge of being clinically dead.

I expect a Vegas betting line to be immediately established regarding how long he can remain in office before he steps down or is pushed out.  (I would put the over/under at 6 months.)  Then Comma-la will step in, and her ham-handed delivery, room-temperature IQ, and repulsive cackling will alienate every non-hard-core leftist in the country.

So we can look forward to incompetent leadership, vicious Dem in-fighting, and great prospects for a GOP wave in the 2022 mid-term, and a presidential win in 2024.

Would I trade all of that for a long, dirty, court battle ending in a second Trump term instead?  You bet your friending Schumer I would!  But is there reason to be optimistic, even if we don’t get that? 

Always.   

Christmas is coming, CO nation is here, and Avenatti should be out of the joint in time to run next time around. 

Let’s let our righteous anger fuel us to support Trump’s battle in the courts and in the court of public opinion, and to get out the vote in the Georgia senate run-offs next month.  Let’s stiffen the spines of the GOP congressional delegations, form ranks in defense of our liberties and our country, and make Joey Gaffes and Comma-la sorry that they ever wanted to try herding the rabid, hateful, hissing, syphilitic cats that are the moonbat congressional Democrats!

Comma-la/Avenatti 2024!  

Before I get started, you may remember that last week I had the brainstorm of cutting in some of Joe Biden’s last-debate “Come on”s into the Beatles’ “Please please me.”  Well, CO nation came through – hat trip to Brian, who sent me this short MP4 version of Biden singing a Beatles chorus with the Fab 4, which I’ve posted on this page, under the title, “Beatles-Biden.”

If you’ve seen some of Joey Gaffes’ recent word salad incident, you can probably guess that he’d also do a great job with other nonsense excerpts, such as “I am the walrus, goo goo g’joob.”

On a more serious note, I really don’t know what to think about this election.  

As much as I don’t trust the polls to not tilt left to some degree, I also don’t want to delude myself by just dismissing them out of hand.  (They were largely right in 2018, 2014 and 2012, and they were just outside of the margin of error even in 2016.)  If they show a 2-3 point lead for Biden in any given state, I can see Trump picking that one up.  If they show Biden up by 7-8, I can’t feel sanguine about that state.

On the other hand, there are so many reasons that argue against believing that Biden will win.  The gigantic, frenzied Trump rallies vs. the handful of goofballs parked in a defunct drive-in movie theatre in their insane-political-bumper-sticker-plastered Priuses.  Larger-than-usual support for Trump from blacks and Hispanics.  Joey Gaffe’s “Weekend at Biden’s” somnambulant performances on the stump.  (Have you noticed that Biden has not been seen on an actual stump?  That’s because the difficulty involved in distinguishing the stump from the candidate.)

Not to mention the “shy Trump voters.”  Who are logically shy about their vote, given the Dems’ nationwide orgy of violence, vandalism and bullying of anyone who disagrees with them.

So I don’t know what to expect tomorrow, and I’m more than a little depressed that this election could even be close.   Many conservatives like me were afraid that Trump was a lifelong Dem and not a committed student of conservative principles, and I’ve been thrilled to see how wrong I was, at least about his governance.  He’s gotten more conservative goals done – tax and regulation cuts, originalist judges, a little on the wall at least, a booming economy, our embassy moved to Jerusalem, reversing foreign policy blunders of Obama and those before him, droning terrorists, etc.  

He’s blown out the budget, but every president on both sides has done that, and the worst of the deficits have come because of the pandemic – and I can’t picture a scenario in which any president would have held the line any better, or spent less. 

For centrists and reasonable lefties (I know: all 14 of them), he certainly has not turned out to be the extremist or power-hungry autocrat whom they said they feared.  Surely you can only call someone an orange Hitler for so long before he’s either got to start rounding up some Jews and dissidents, or you have to realize that you were wildly wrong.

Beyond all that, the left has been so terrible this year that I can’t believe a majority of Americans will vote for them.  The left has either explicitly or tacitly condoned violent, America-hating race riots for almost 6 months now.   They have leapt at the chance to micro-manage the lives of everyone with the misfortune to live in one of the blue cities or states that they run.

The latest example comes from Gavin Newsom, certain to make the podium in the “Worst Governor in America” competition.  (And that’s knowing that Cuomo, Whitmer, and the “Round Mound of No Economic Rebound” Pritzker from Illinois are also in the mix!)

Newsom recently came out with idiotic lefty rules for Thanksgiving that are almost too bizarre to be believed:  Everyone must have their Thanksgiving meal outside, and the gathering may last no more than 2 hours.  He prefers that there be no singing or shouting, but if you must do that, he says to do it quietly.  (I’m waiting for Gavin to issue some instructions on how one can shout quietly, the numbskull.) 

The good news is that he will grudgingly allow you to go inside to use the bathroom… but only if it is sanitized frequently. 

Thank God for our moral betters telling me how to celebrate Thanksgiving.  Because traditionally I like to just step away from the patio table, defecate in the front yard, wipe myself with a festive pine bough (carefully!), and then sit down again and pour some gravy through the mask that Newsom wants me to wear.

If the American people really vote for these guys, I am tempted to start going around to every house with a Biden sign and “celebrate Thanksgiving” in their front yard, Newsom-style!  

So I don’t have any bold predictions for this election-eve column.  Instead, I’m going to examine an example of how NOT to approach a high-stakes, alarming election like this one. 

Let me introduce to you (if you haven’t already seen this story) a lovely little leftist lass (alliteration for the win, Alex!) known on TikTok as “Erleepen.”  This little ghoul relates a tale through a series of note cards that she holds up to the camera:

“My 55 year-old conservative dad has never voted Democrat in his life. He’s dying of Aplastic Anemia.  We’ve had some intense exchanges about him voting for Trump this year, which has been painful, since we’ll almost certainly lose him in the next few weeks/months. He has 6 daughters who love him dearly.”

The terrible daughter then smiles as she shows a card announcing that “yesterday” her dad “was so excited to tell me he’d just voted for Biden/Harris 2020!”

‘Erleepen’ says her father told her that he voted Biden – apparently casting aside his own political beliefs in the process – because “it matters to my girls and my girls matter to me.” 

The video ends with a call to arms: “Vote for the guy who respects women! If my very Republican dad can…So. Can. You.”

I’m not going to comment on the case she makes for Biden. 

Well, except to say that calling him “the guy who respects women??!”  C’mon, man! 

If we ever get back to working in person, and I ever came into my office and saw a half dozen female colleagues and employs in a group, and if I then went around that group and alternately sniffed their hair, rubbed their shoulders, and gave them the Biden “up-the-skirt high-five,” do you know what sentence would appear in NONE of their testimony at the emergency HR meeting that would immediately be called?

“I think we can all agree that Martin REALLY respects women!”

But other than that, I’m not going to comment on the case that she makes.

Instead I’m going to comment on how badly she is missing the point of life, and of politics.

I’m a bit of a political junkie, as most of you are.  But my interest in politics takes a back seat to many other areas of life: my religion, my family, my work, my virtual family at the CO site, sports, good fiction, Wonder Dog ownership, etc. and etc.

In fact, politics only means anything to me because of the way it impacts many more important areas of life.  Since I value my rights to speak and to worship and to defend myself and my family with a gun, and since I’m fond of my country and running my own life, I would like to see no Democrats in a position of national power for the next century or so, at least. 

I would also like to be left alone by a bunch of micro-managing statists who hate my guts because of my skin color and my gender and my political beliefs.  And also, for all I know, for my rapier wit, animal magnetism, and catlike grace. 

For all of those reasons and more, if Biden does win tomorrow, I’m going to have some dark days for a while.  But not too dark, and not for too long.  Because life is too short to make politics the center of it.

But life is never shorter than when a loved one is dying.  And to spend that precious time browbeating your dying dad about politics?  Are you kidding me?!

Longtime readers of this column will know that my world-class dad died in December of 2014.  (I’ve written and re-run a tribute to him, which you can find in a Father’s Day column from this last June at Martinsimpsonwriting.com, if you are interested.)  Dad had cancer, and when we found out in August that a surgery hadn’t worked, and the cancer has metastasized, I made sure that I spent as much time with him as possible.

I had a T-R teaching schedule in north central Florida, and every Thursday after class I loaded Cassie the Wonder Dog into the minivan and drove up to mom and dad’s house south of Nashville, returning to Florida on Monday evening so I could teach again.   In November, when he was finally in the homestretch, my colleagues at work pitched in to handle my classes so that I could stay in TN with him and mom, and just do my grading from a distance.

Those months with dad were a great gift.  All of us are dying, but we all knew that dad’s days were truly numbered, and that made each of them precious to us.  Although we always had a great relationship, he and I spent more time together in his last 4 months than we had in the past 12 years.  We talked about God, and what he wanted my sister and I to do to make sure that mom was looked after and taken care of.   We watched DVDs of the sermons he missed because he couldn’t make it to church, along with some football games, and Jeopardy.  We played cards and we told jokes, and he held court with a steady stream of visitors from all eras of his life, but mostly his church friends from Tennessee.

I took a video camera, and during those last months I recorded about 4 hours of him reminiscing and telling stories about his childhood and family and life.

You know what we did NOT talk about, and what we never would have talked about in those circumstances, in a million years?  WHO HE WAS SUPPOSED TO VOTE FOR!  (Cue Sam Kinison if he were a hospice worker:  OH! OOOOHHHHH!)

I can’t even imagine bothering my dying dad about politics, under any circumstances.  But to strong arm him into voting for Joe friending Biden??!!

What could that sad woman have possibly said to her poor father?  “Hey dad, you and Joe Biden really have a lot in common!  I mean, he’s almost dead, and you’re almost dead, right?  And he’s called a lid on his campaign, and you’ve called a lid on your life.  And with your morphine drip, you often don’t know where you are, or what year it is, either!”

“And you know how mom used to always call you a racist rapist, and then haunt you with that horrible, braying laugh of hers?  Joe’s got that, too!” 

Ugh. 

I really hope that her dad just humored his small-minded daughter, and voted for Trump anyway.  And I think we should pray for her soul.

And also that she is very, very disappointed on election day.

Get out there and vote, people!

As our beloved COSE reminded us, Monday was a certain pant-suited former future president’s birthday.  She was celebrating the big 7-3. 

As you may know, there are certain gifts associated with momentous birthdays: diamonds for one, gold for another, a commemorative dinnerware set featuring Legendary Bears Players of the Past for another.  (Yes, turning 40 was especially sweet for me, thanks for asking!  Also, please pass me my decorative Gayle Sayers tumbler of scotch.)

But how many of you knew that for the 73^rd birthday, the traditional gift is to elevate your polar-opposite arch-nemesis to a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court, leaving you gnashing your frighteningly over-sized teeth and pounding the earth with your hooves in rage ?   

Well now you do. 

Sing it with me, CO Nation:

Happy birthday to you (CAW CAW!)

Happy birthday to you (CAW CAW!)

Happy birthday dear Hillary (CAW!)

Now slink back to Chappaqua!     (She’s on the couuuuurrrrttt!) Yeah!”

Quick quiz.  Below I’ve listed three actual absurd things that the late Joe Biden has done in the last fortnight, and one ridiculous thing that I made up.  See if you can guess which is which:

1. He said that he’s running against someone named George.
2. He said that his team has “developed the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics.”
3. He called the voters in a state he desperately wants to win “chumps.”
4. He tried to cast his vote early at a polling place in Delaware, but wandered into a men’s room, stepped up to a urinal that he thought was a voting booth, and by the time his secret service escort retrieved him he’d written “Me” on a urinal cake.  Then Jill took him by the arm and helped him up to an actual voting booth.  Where he accidentally voted for Donald Trump.

Okay, the urinal cake was probably one step too far, and gave it away.

My favorite real gaffe was the George thing.  If you didn’t see it, he was being interviewed by George Lopez (whom he managed not to refer to as Juan, Jose or Miguel, but only with a great effort), and Lopez asked what he would say to undecided voters.

Biden said, and I am not making this up, “The character of the country in my view is literally on the ballot, what kind of country are we going to be?  Four more years of George uh… George…”

Then Jill jumped in and side-whispered, “Trump, you idiot!”

And Biden blurted, “Trump, you idiot!”

I love that the MSM tried to dive on that dementia grenade to protect Plugsy from himself.  An AP “fact check” – and sarcastic scare quotes were never more appropriate – helpfully explained that you shouldn’t trust your lying eyes and ears: “Biden appears to stumble over his words before correcting himself. The clips online do not mention that Biden was being interviewed by [George] Lopez and instead contend that Biden was so confused that he mixed up President Trump with George W. Bush.”

Got that?  He only “appeared” to stumble over his words, or be confused. But he obviously wasn’t.   He was talking to a guy named George, you see, so he naturally… said that guy’s name?   (Like if you and I were talking, and I asked who you were voting for, you’d naturally blurt out, “Martin!”  And if I said, “What’s your favorite dessert topping, you’d say, “Martin!”)

Of course Biden wasn’t mixing up Trump with a previous president! No!  He was just referring to the constitutional provision that when a GOP president gets re-elected, he is actually replaced by a semi-talented Hispanic comedian, as in, “Trump won, so here comes another four years of George Lopez!” 

As Joe could tell you, that part of the constitution is right there toward the bottom, in the Bill of… Attainder?  No, wait.  The bill of lading?  Oh, you know… you know the thing!

To be fair to Biden, I’m not sure that he WAS referring to George Bush. 

Considering that rolling-tumbleweed-filled noggin of his, he could just as likely have meant George Lazenby, or George Wendt (Norm!), or George of the Jungle.  (Though after a moment’s reflection, there’s no way that what’s left of the Big Guy could have made the arcane reference pull of the least-remembered James Bond.)

Regardless, it couldn’t be more obvious that Biden is a momentary stand-in as a candidate.  If he wins, that means only one thing: Kamala’s got her nose under the tent, and she’ll shortly be forcing her way in, and forcing Biden out.  

Speaking of camels, did you catch that braying, insanely inappropriate laugh that she unleashed when Norah O’Donnell mentioned that she had the most liberal voting record in the Senate?   Good lord!  Just when you think nobody can have a more annoying laugh than Hillary, Comma-la says, “Hold my comically oversized Cheech-and-Chong spliff and watch this!”

I voted on Monday, and I almost feel bad for the earnest oldster Dems on the edge of the library property, who gave me a small sheet outlining the Dem-preferred responses.  I knew all of candidates to vote for, but there were a dozen amendments to state, county and city laws, and they are always confusingly written.

I used to read each proposition earnestly in the newspaper ahead of time, trying to decipher each one.  But then, almost 10 years ago now, after having everything I hold dear routinely pooped upon by leftist “journalists” for my entire adult life, I stopped subscribing to the paper.  

So now I usually have to camp out in the voting booth and try to untangle the badly written amendment language.  “This amendment calls for reversing the earlier bill that restricted any attempt to prevent the elimination of prohibiting the right to require that an expectant mother be allowed to opt out of seeing an ultrasound before an abortion.” 

I always just want to straighten up and raise my hand and say in a loud voice, “Hey, on Amendment 8, which way do I vote if I’m not a moral monster who is pro-infanticide?” 

And then watch all of the pinch-faced booth dwellers give me the stink eye.

But not this year.  Because the nice Dems outside gave me a paper cheat-sheet listing all of the voting positions that a properly woke leftist should take.  So I just voted the opposite way on every item. 

I was out of there in 4 minutes, and back to my usual routine of crushing it at life! 

Finally, in these stress-filled days before the election, I think that what every sane American needs is to look at a picture of Cassie the Wonder Dog getting ready to take a top-down drive with me.  And I’ve got your back, sane Americans.

So when you finish this column, go to Martinsimpsonwriting.com, where you will see a picture of Cassie and I, preparing to go for a spin.   I can’t divulge our travel agenda after this pic was taken; I will only say that the local Dem headquarters did make a police report about a car containing a hilarious Caucasian man and a world-class beast repeatedly circling their building at high speed, in a harassing manner. 

Rumors that witnesses reported hearing intelligent barking, along with a rousing cry of, “What’s up with Hunter’s laptop, you lying, dog-faced pony soldiers?!” have not been confirmed.

Don’t forget to vote, people!

Avenatti/George Lazenby 2020!