Category: Uncategorized

I’ll start today with a story that combines three of my pet peeves – white supremacists, lying leftist media, and sleazy smears of Ron DeSantis — into one Schiff-sandwich of a non-troversy.

Regular readers may remember that when my oldest daughter was a 2-and-a-half-year-old bundle of cuteness and smarts, I had already taught her to memorize three key things. 

The first was the prayer I’d say with her when tucking her into bed.  (“Now I lay Kate down to sleep/ I pray thee Lord her soul to keep/ Thy love guard her through the night/ and wake her up in the morning light.”)

(I have to admit that I’ve got a soft spot for the Old Testament/Germanic darkness of the OG version I was taught, with the line, “If I should die before I wake/I pray thee Lord my soul to take.”  Even as a child, after mom would recite that one with me and then turn off the light, I remember thinking, “What’s the over/under on me dying before I wake?  Good lord!”)

The second was the old “Which is your favorite one of Aristotle’s logical fallacies?”  (If you want the backstory to that one, you can read my amazing wedding speech for her, from last July, on my website Martinsimpsonwriting.com)

But the third one never failed to crack me up.  Whenever Katie was playing quietly in the room, or maybe just toddling through, and something happened on tv that I didn’t like – a ref blowing an easy call, a stock market dip, a bad weather forecast, etc. – I’d call out, “Who do we blame for this?”

And my adorable little offspring would sing out lustily, “The Democrats!”

I don’t care who you are: that’s just good parenting. 

But grown-up leftists do that same thing, and not as a hilarious parenting trick.  They’re serious.  If you doubt me, the next time a couple of lefties are walking by, call out, “Oh crap!  What do we blame for this?”

And they’ll stop and ask if it involves the weather or not.  If you say it does, they’ll say, “Climate change!”  If you say it doesn’t, they’ll say, “White supremacy!”

Unfortunately for the left, their demand for white supremacists far outstrips the actual supply.   Of course white supremacists do exist.  But just like asexual, Marxist, Biden-admiring furries, they are a repugnant affront to the senses, and there are very, VERY few of them.

You may remember Charlottesville, where to hear the MSM tell it, hordes of white supremacists came from the far corners of the globe to engage in a veritable gotterdammerung of racist violence. 

Translation: after a 6-month propaganda blitz by the most prominent supremacists calling on all racists to come to their gathering, only a few hundred trolls and homunculi (out of a nation of 330 million people) showed up.  They marched around with torches and chanted slogans as ignorant as those of antifa and BLM, and one idiot hit and killed a woman with his car. 

And yet our execrable MSM still evokes the horrors of Charlottesville (or January 6^th, for that matter) in the same trembling tones once reserved for a dirigible explosion.

In this context, the left loves nothing more than when a handful of morons creep out of their mommies’ basements in their home-made uniforms and hand-drawn swastikas and puts on a pathetic demonstration. (Because a guy who ran a socialist workers’ party in Germany was a typical right-winger.  Got it?)        

So when around 35 such losers marched in Altamonte Springs, FL last Saturday, the MSM was all over it.  A few local Dems laughably claimed the cosplay Nazis (aka the German national socialist workers’ party) represented the ominous and growing rightwing threat to Florida posed by… members of a socialist workers’ party. 

But Rolling Stone – which believe it or not, used to be a magazine that covered popular music, before it became a left-wing rag dedicated to shaving IQ points off of its dwindling number of readers – out-smeared the local Dems.

The Stoners wrote a hit piece and pimped out a quick tweet claiming, “’We’re all DeSantis supporters!’ one marcher shouted.” 

But they were stupid enough to link to the video of the marcher saying those words.  And unfortunately for them, the video clearly showed that the words were a sarcastic response to a question trying to link them to DeSantis. 

Another subtle clue: moments later the same marcher yelled, “F*** Ron DeSantis!” while others cheered.  They later called DeSantis “a joke.”

In fact, one of the supposed leaders of the dopes – at least he was willing to show his face, and he gave his name as Christopher Pohlhaus – blew up the Dems’ narrative.  (Spoiler alert: Rolling Stone didn’t report this part.)  Pohlhaus ranted about “capitalism” and “billionaires” (is he a Bernie bro?), in addition to attacking Jews. (Ok, maybe not.) (Then again, considering Bernie’s trendy secular-left anti-Israel position, maybe so.)   

When asked about the presidential race and whether he would vote in 2024 – you know the young lefty with the microphone was holding his breath, praying to hear DeSantis’ name – Pohlhaus said, “My vote is useless.  I think Biden is better than Trump, because he sends rockets to Ukraine.” 

Cue the sad trombone, and turn off the microphone and the camera crew’s lights.

Speaking of evil race hoaxes, I have a story from America’s politically dysfunctional top hat. 

You may remember that several years ago, Canada was full of lurid stories that the Catholic Church had carried out “tens of thousands” of murders and burials of indigenous children at residential schools during the 19^th and early 20^th centuries.

For the Christophobic and whitey-hating left, this story was too good to check. Every lefty pol from Justin “blackface” Trudeau on down started fanning the flames of racial and religious hatred, as is their wont.  When a few people used ground-penetrating radar to locate “anomalies” which they said were mass graves, the government started calling for millions in reparations.

They also began a campaign of harassment of Christians and other non-sufferers of CRIS (cranial-rectal inversion syndrome), in some instances hounding them out of their jobs.  (You may remember a similar recent phenomenon in this country, when those with the temerity to suggest that a new virus might not kill 98% of the human population, and that maybe lockdowns, masks and vaccines didn’t work, were also shouted down and driven from polite society.)

Worse, many people naïve enough to trust the Canadian MSM were inspired to show off their virtue by vandalizing and/or burning between 60 – 85 Canadian churches.  

Fast forward to today, and many recent excavations have been undertaken at the suspected “mass burial” sites.  And apparently “anomalies” is Latin for “something other than dead indigenous kids.”  Because searchers have found not tens of thousands of corpses, or even thousands of corpses or dozens of corpses.

The number of bodies found to date?  Zero.

Does that mean that no indigenous people were killed in Canada in the last century and a half?  No.

Some certainly were killed, possibly by evil white folks, but also possibly by other indigenous tribes, such as the one led by Lizzie Warren’s great-great-grandsquaw “Howling Wench,” who reportedly had a temper as prominent as her cheekbones.  (#wemustneverstopmocking her).    

C’mon Canadians.  We used to make fun of you for being blandly nice, but lately you’ve turned into a bunch of totalitarian jerks, and we already have enough of those, north of Richmond.

Finally, I’ve got to discuss the most horrific week endured by a leftist bonehead this year.  And that’s counting Biden’s debacle in Hawaii!

Philip Bump is a political hack who writes analysis for the Washington Post.  If you’ve never heard of him, you’re lucky, because he’s the kind of guy who puts the “anal” in “political analyst.”   And yesterday he stepped on another rhetorical rake.

When foundations created in the names of 13 former presidents released a generic letter saying, “We reaffirm our commitment to the principles of democracy undergirding this great nation,” Bump put out a tweet claiming, “Fourteen presidents indirectly called out Trump’s threat to democracy today.  Thirteen former presidents signed a letter.  The current one released an ad.”

Bump was immediately mercilessly mocked, since there are only 6 presidents alive today – and that’s if you count Biden as “alive.”  If you go back 13 presidents, you get to Eisenhower.  And he’s no more capable of signing a letter – or putting out an ad – than Biden is. 

But that wasn’t even close to the most mock-worthy mistake that Bump made this week.  Because he went on a podcast with a comedian named Noam Dworman who had asked for someone to defend Biden on the issue of corruption.

Over the course of an hour – after first flattering Bump about how his name had come up as one of the smartest guys writing on that kind of political issue – Dworman dismantled one Bump claim after another.  But still, Bump kept grinding on. (HA!)

After Bump had repeated the risible talking point that while Hunter might be bent, there is NO evidence that Joey Gaffes did anything corrupt, Dworman went for the jugular with the simplest, most common sense question: “What do you take from Hunter’s text message to his adult daughter, ‘I have to give 50% of my income to pop?”

You have to watch and listen to what follows to really appreciate Bump’s self-immolation.  He talks faster and faster, and his voice takes on a whiny tone suggestive of what would happen if Joy Behar and Beta O’Rourke had a baby.  (Sorry for that mental image.)

But here’s a partial transcript:   

Bump: “I have NO idea what that means.  I don’t.  I have no idea what that means.” [Sidebar: None of the words in Hunter’s quote are longer than two syllables, and the meaning of his statement is obvious to even the dullest of dullards, such as AOC or Que Mala.]

Dworman:  But what could it mean?

Bump: I have no idea.  I don’t know.

By the end, as Dworman presses the most obvious question, Bump says that he feels like Dworman is trying to get him to leave.  Finally Dworman has had enough, saying, “Is this the way the WaPo handles people who disagree with them?”

And Bump starts to melt into the floor like the wicked Hillary of the West, saying, “Yeah, when I agree to be on for 45 minutes and then I get on for an hour and 15…”

Dworman shakes his head in disgust and says, “Go, go.”

And the poor schmuck pulls off his headset in relief.  And Bump goes into the night. (HA!)   

You really need to watch that video to get the full, cringy schadenfreude of it all.

You know it’s bad when even Jeffrey Toobin was like, “Dude, that is one humiliating piece of video!”

Biden delenda est!

“Dr.” Jill Biden/Philip “speed” Bump, 2024!

Can we all agree now that Joe Biden is not going to be the Democrat nominee next year? 

I’m becoming more convinced that CO was prescient when he predicted several months ago that the Dem nominee and likely next prez (shudder) is going to be Ken Doll Newsom. 

I don’t know what kind of crystal ball our fearless leader has, but I’ve got a crystal brain (hat tip to Adam Carolla) and a purple wizard hat that I occasionally take out of its climate-controlled glass case when I need to foretell the future.

But I needed neither my crystal brain nor my wizard hat to see the future for our Cadaver in Chief.  I only had to watch his performance in Hawaii, and a few more minutes of him being allowed to speak in public since.

I don’t want to beat a dead president, but that guy is not up for the job, if he ever was.

Sorry, the phrase I was looking for there was “beat a dead horse.” 

Or was it?

Anyway, Joey Gaffes couldn’t have done worse in the wake of the Hawaii fire.  First he went on vacation for a week, and when reporters asked for his thoughts on the fire, he said, “No comment.”

You want to talk about bad luck?  The poor dope has uttered two coherent words this entire year, and they happened to be those disastrously callous ones.  Normally, if he’d tried to say that, it would have come out as, “Na-ha kulamanna.”

And the lickspittle MSM hacks would have fallen all over themselves to tell us that “na-ha kulamanna” is native Hawaiian for “my prayers go out for the people of Hawaii, and my government will give them all the assistance they need at this tragic time.”

Then when Biden was finally shamed into going to Hawaii – interrupting a second vacation for a day and a half – he put on a tour de force of cringe. 

When called on to give comfort to people whose homes have burned to the ground and who have lost loved ones, he re-told the phony story about the towering inferno that nearly devoured his home years ago.  (“I remember that Steve McQueen and Paul Newman were in it, and Faye Dunaway, what a dish she was.  I once fought Corn Pop for her hand in marriage.  No joke.”)

Everyone knows that that story is not appropriate.  Or true.  He’s told it many times, embellishing it each time, in ways that make it even more offensive.  His wife grabbed the cat and made it into the ’67 Corvette in the garage, and then stayed there while the almost-deadly fire raged all around her.  Also, half of the house nearly collapsed.  And one firefighter was almost killed fighting the blaze.

Except that the fire department called it a minor kitchen fire and put it out in 20 minutes.

But even if it had consumed his whole house, killed his cat and burned up his ‘Vette, it still wouldn’t be acceptable to tell that story to a bunch of people who have just lost loved ones, and all of their material possessions too.  You KNOW that Biden’s handlers have told him to stop telling it. 

But he can’t help it.  Or he can’t remember it.  Or he’s a narcissistic sociopath.

“Man, that ‘Vette is sweet, and it would have been a real tragedy to lose that thing.  It can do zero to 60 in 2 seconds flat, even with the passenger seat crammed full of classified documents and one of Hunter’s hookers and a bunch of untraceable gold bars from the ChiComs in the trunk!  You folks know what I’m talking about, with your missing kids and your burned down houses.  Na-ha kulamanna, as you people say…. Who wants some ice cream?”

Biden looked even worse sitting at the event where a local was speaking about the tragedy.  Biden fell into a coma, or a nap, or whatever he does when he “calls a lid” on the day’s activities at 10 a.m.  Watching him slumped there with his eyes mostly closed and his mouth partly open gave me the creeps. 

He looked like what a family sees when the mortician has done a horrible job, even after you told him the ceremony was going to be open casket, and you’re not going to pay his full fee!  

So Biden can’t run again.  Which leaves Que Mala, the only politician in the Western hemisphere less respected and more reviled than Joe Biden! 

Nobody – left or right, young or old, alive or Pelosi – wants her to be answering that proverbial crisis phone call at 3:00 a.m. 

No one can picture her being woken up from a dream about yellow school buses driving through a landscape of magical Venn diagrams to hear the words, “China has invaded Taiwan!” or, “A deadly virus has been discovered in several port cities on the Eastern seaboard!”

Unless that caller says, “Quick!  We need someone to sexually service corrupt San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown for a shady patronage position,” everybody knows that Que Mala is not the person for that job.

(And yes, Que Mala got that job in 1994, so no, it’s not “too soon” for that joke.)

Anyway, I think we should take Biden’s likely absence on the Dem ticket next year into account. Especially if we’re considering nominating someone with very high negatives with independents, in the hope that Biden’s negatives are so high that we can still narrowly beat him. 

Turning to the world of entertainment, the Burning Man festival has been a nightmare this year.  I’ve never been the least bit tempted to go to some drug-and-music event with thousands of hipsters and hippies and who knows who.  (I’m sure there are some cool people there too, though I don’t get it.)  But given their travails now, I’m sympathetic.

First, many of the attendees were held up on a highway by their (normally) co-religionist environmental extremists, until the Paiute Tribal Rangers rode to the rescue.  (I saw them open for the Rooftop Koreans in ’98, and that show was awesome!)

It turns out that the highlight of the week for many people may have been watching the Rangers go to work on the virtue-signalers blocking the road.  If I can paraphrase Arnold’s reply to the question of what is best in life in the original Conan movie (and I think that I can): “To crush the protestors, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their men who identify as women.”

When the attendees finally arrived on site, they were just in time for a long, soaking rain that turned the area into a muddy hellscape.  And the mud is alkaline… so that sounds great.   Now one person has died, and organizers have told attendees that they might not be able to drive out for a while yet. 

Still, I’d rather be there than at the Democrat National Convention.  But this year, it’s a closer call than usual.   

Biden delenda est! … then maybe Newsom…

“Dr.” Jill Biden/Toonces, Joe Biden’s Corvette-Driving Cat, 2024!

I appreciate everybody’s feedback on the video I posted on my site yesterday, and I especially appreciated the great and powerful CO’s putting up a direct-link post to that video, too. 

In that video I ranted about annoying RINOs and the annoying people who call non-RINOs “RINOs.”  But now it’s the start of a holiday weekend, and I’m done complaining.  Today let’s just look at stories that make me happy. 

Regular readers know that few things in life give me the schadenfreude giggles like crime stories with happy endings.  And I’ve got several of those, starting with the story of Gerald Pope, an armed robber who had been plying his trade in the New Orleans area lately.  Allegedly.

Two weeks ago, an armed thug looking a great deal like Gerald Pope robbed a cabbie from an unnamed cab company at gunpoint.   Then last Sunday, a guy who could be Gerald Pope’s twin – spoiler alert: he doesn’t have a twin – robbed a cabbie from that same cab company. 

But on Monday, a guy who is pretty likely Gerald Pope – because he was carrying Gerald Pope’s ID, and looked extremely Gerald Pope-y, and had Gerald Pope’s fingerprints – went for the trifecta, when he approached a driver sitting in his cab. Pope produced a gun and demanded cash. 

The cabbie pulled his own gun and shot Pope.  News reports say only that he shot him “multiple times.”  For those of you scoring at home, that’s better than once, but not as good as, “he mag-dumped him.”

But it turned out that “multiple times” was enough, because Pope was pronounced DRT.  Which is paramedic-speak for “dead right there.” (Or “dead at the scene,” if you’re fancy.) 

Either way, observers at Pope’s residence report that they have seen neither white nor black smoke coming out of its chimney.  So I guess no new Pope has yet been chosen.

Speaking of bad popes: Francis. 

I’m not Catholic, but the more I hear about him focusing less on uncle Jesus in favor of some trendy lefty politics – climate change hysteria, attacks on free markets – the more I don’t care for that guy. 

He’s no Gerald Pope, obviously.  But still, no bueno.

But I digress. 

My next crime story comes from Chicago.  Surprise!

On Monday morning, a Spanish-language Univision Chicago TV news crew was taping a story on a recent rash of armed robberies.  I’m guessing their angle was, “How can this be happening, when Chicago has some of the strictest gun laws in the country? Experts are baffled.”

They set up their cameras, checked their hair and their notes, and started filming on a public street.  Annnnnnndddd… they got robbed.

Cue the sad trombone.

Or in this case, the sad mariachi band.

Oh, who am I kidding?  There’s no such thing as a sad mariachi band.  If you can see those matching sequined suits and sombreros, and hear those peppy guitars and singing, and you don’t smile, you are dead inside.

Where was I? 

Oh yeah: the super-safe streets of Chicago, on account of it’s illegal to have guns there.

Three young fellows who apparently didn’t know that guns are illegal jumped out of two cars, pointed their illegal guns at the tv crew, and stole cash, a backpack, a camera and some camera equipment. 

Unconfirmed reports suggest that the camera crew shouted, “Aye, dios mio! Banditos! Silencio por favor Martino!”  (That’s the only Spanish I remember from two semesters of high school Spanish, and hilarious 1970s Fritos commercials.)

The criminals have not yet been caught.  Surprise!  “But don’t call them ‘criminals,’ said slower-witted Tracy Morgan impersonator (and Chicago Mayor) Brandon Johnson.  “Because that’s offensive.”

Normal Chicago residents said, “Let’s go, Brandon!”

The police are looking for the robbers, who are described as three Nigerians wearing MAGA hats.  So… be on the lookout, Chicagoans.   And maybe think about moving.

But the best crime stories of the week, and probably the year, form a tale of two protests.

The first one took place on August 21^st, on Nantucket Island, where a group of environmental goons crashed a fundraising party benefitting MA Democrat Governor Maura Healey.  I don’t know anything about her, but I’ll bet you she’d tell you her pronouns without you even asking.

So the goons interrupted the festivities with inane talking points, followed by chanting banal slogans and unfurling stupid banners, eventually forcing the early end of the soiree.  (If you haven’t seen the video, you should, because that gathering was as white as Lizzie Warren, and twice as pretentious.) (#wemustneverstopmockingher)

And their pompous account of their great victory was as ridiculous as you’d expect: “We just swarmed a major fundraiser…. We demanded [Healey] ban new fossil fuel projects.  She refused.  So we shut down her whole event.  She fled.  Respect us or expect us.”    

How can we react to such an example of commie-on-commie comedy gold, other than to give the clueless young comrades a thumbs-up and a chef’s kiss?

A similar group of environmental warriors thought they’d do the same thing, only out on a highway that goes through tribal land of the Paiute Indians in Nevada.  This lefty group has given themselves some stupid names (Seven Circles and Extinction Rebellion), but I’ll just call them PNAFE (Pretentious Narcissistic A-holes for the Earth).

So PNAFE made a barricade out of a trailer and some other assorted junk that they put across the road, and then sat down in the middle of the road.  Because no one else’s lives are important, and we must all save GAIA by stopping traffic in the desert. 

Traffic backed up for a few miles, and word got out to the nearby police force called the Paiute Tribal Rangers.  And if you’ve got a better name for a garage band, I’d like to hear it.

The Rangers showed up in some pickup trucks, and they didn’t act like a bunch of asexual Massachusetts liberals.  In fact, they acted like a bunch of Indians who have been irritated by white jackasses for 150 years, and this was their time for some payback.

And their proper course of action was as plain as the white on Liz Warren’s face.  (Boom! Grandma Squanto two-fer!)

They used their loudspeakers to say things like, “Get off the highway, it’s a state route.  Everybody will be arrested if not.  30 seconds.  Get off the f*cking road.”

And then the lead Ranger drove his truck through the middle of the shoddily constructed barricade (I swear I could hear him yelling, “Leroy Jenkins!”), whipped back around, and started yelling at the doofi while pointing a pistol at them. “Get down now, get on the ground.  Don’t move.  What is your major malfunction, numbnuts?!”

Okay, that last line was from R. Lee Ermey in Full Metal Jacket.  But you get the idea.

This evoked a variety of emotionally satisfying shrieking from the female protestors, and the male protestors who I’m guessing identify as females.  “We’re non-violent! Please!  We don’t have any weapons at all!”

There’s a great line from Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven, right after he shotguns the bar owner who had displayed the dead body of Clint’s fellow bad guy, played by Morgan Freeman.  The sheriff (Gene Hackman) snarls at Eastwood, “You just shot an unarmed man!”

Clint delivers the line perfectly: “Well he should have armed himself, if he was gonna decorate his saloon with my friend.”

When that delusional PNAFE member screeched, “We don’t have any weapons at all!” I wish one of the rangers would have said, “Well you should have armed yourself, if you were gonna cause a five-mile traffic jam.”       

Oh, how I love that story and video!  Because it’s got everything: smug leftists, tribal police, and tribal police smashing through the barricades of smug leftists.

We would be in much better shape if we became a nation of Paiute Tribal Rangers, smashing our (gasoline-powered) pick-ups through the barricades put up by a motley bunch of arrogant lefties.   

Have a good Labor Day, everybody!

Biden delenda est!

“Dr.” Jill Biden/the Ghost of Gerald Pope, 2024!

Well, stately Simpson manor has survived Hurricane Idalia, which in our part of Florida was less destructive than Hillary.  (The storm, and the repulsive politician.)  I spent part of Tuesday trying to storm-proof our rental houses, including putting plywood over the windows of our old Victorian. (I’ll be posting more pictures of the nearly-returned-to-her-former-glory Rosewood at my website soon.) 

The main part of the storm passed to the west of us, and we didn’t even lose power.  I made another trip around the rentals today, and have 7 barrels and a pick-up bed full of yard waste to get rid of, but no major damage anywhere, thank God.

DeSantis did his typically excellent job of handling the storm, and in return, was attacked by both the right and the left, as per usual. While DeSantis was handling his bidness, Trump posted four tweets criticizing RDS’s poll performance and touting made-up “roomers” that he would be dropping out of the race to run for Senate.  (Ugh.)

The Dems were their usual classy selves as well.  When DeSantis went to speak to and support a group mourning the three black people shot and killed by a white racist in Jacksonville, he was booed by leftist racial arsonists. 

One local Dem pol actually had the sense to defend his right to speak, but afterwards the ghouls went right back to blaming the best governor in the country for everything from lynching to hurricanes to the heartbreak of psoriasis. 

Two related points:  1. Three black people shot to death?  Do you know what three murdered black people is equivalent to?  Any weekend evening in Democrat-run Chicago, between 8:00 p.m and 8:45 p.m.  (Except that you’ll never EVER hear about those black victims of horrific Democrat policies and governance.)

2. You probably haven’t heard this, but a recent story in the conservative Washington Examiner documented that DeSantis has had more cash spent on attack ads against him than Donald Trump and Joe Biden, combined!   Biden had $9.2 million spent against him, and even though Trump is leading RDS by 40 points, he’s only had $8.1 million spent against him.  Meanwhile, both sides ganged up to spend $20.2 million against DeSantis!

I’m not one for conspiracy theories, but do you think that spending that much to smear and kneecap a candidate who is a statistical long-shot might just suggest that both President Trump and the Dems fear that RDS would otherwise have a decent chance to win?  I think it’s certainly clear that the Dems would rather run against Trump than DeSantis.  (You can easily find a half-hour-long compilation of clips of every major Dem and MSM leftist screeching about how RDS is worse than Trump, from earlier this year, when it looked like he had a better chance at the GOP nomination.)

I dearly hope that if Trump does get the nomination, the Dems end up regretting that decision!  

On another topic, several commenters have asked me my opinion of country/roots singer Oliver Anthony’s viral hit song “Rich Men North of Richmond,” and his subsequent ire at the song being brought up at the first GOP debate.

The song first: I like it, and I like the other songs of his that I’ve heard.  Regular readers know about my Appalachian roots on one side of my family, and my love of old-school country and bluegrass.  Anthony has come out of nowhere with a talent that fits right in with that tradition, and I love his rags-to-riches story too.  

I was disappointed to see him come out and slam conservatives in subsequent comments.  He was mad that his song was discussed at the GOP debate, and at what he sees as conservative attempts to co-opt it, when he says that he wrote it to attack politicians, and “especially” conservatives and/or the ones on stage at the debate.  

I really hope he doesn’t “Bud-Light” himself by insulting the lop-sided majority of his fans – who are conservatives.  And I don’t think he needs to, because even though he doesn’t seem to be aware of it – most people aren’t bookworm political geeks raised on reading Adam Smith, Hayek, Friedman and Buckley – the ideas in his song are mostly conservative. 

Some of the lyrics are politically generic complaints about the tough lot of the working class (long hours, lousy pay, can’t get ahead), and anti-politician animus.   But the chorus is pointed: “These rich men north of Richmond/ Lord knows they all just wanna have total control.”

Point taken: politicians are power hungry, and that issue applies to both parties.  I always wonder at my lefty friends who don’t realize one consistent thing about conservatives: we’re usually disgusted with the GOP and RINOs more than they are!

But the conservative philosophy – even though many/most GOP politicians don’t live up to it – agitates AGAINST centralized political power and the DC/political elite who Oliver correctly says “wanna have total control,” versus the progressive left who embraces that total control completely.

Conservatives say, “that government is best which governs least.”  Conservative/originalist SCOTUS justices say we’re NOT going to dictate abortion policy, we’re going to leave that up to the people in the states.  Conservatives want less regulations, and more individual freedom.

Leftists don’t think regular people can make decisions for themselves, and so they micro-manage and dictate as much of daily life as they can.  They don’t like old fashioned lightbulbs, or toilets that require more water, or guns, or gas stoves, or gas-powered cars.  So they’ve banned the disfavored bulbs and toilets, and they’re trying to ban guns, gas stoves and regular cars.

So who wants “total control” again?    

Leftists also think that the money you work for is the government’s, and they’ll decide how much you get to keep.  They’ve never met a tax they don’t absolutely love.  So when Oliver sings that, “your dollar ain’t sh*t and it’s taxed to no end,” which party does that apply to best?

When he says, “I wish politicians would look out for miners/And not just minors on an island somewhere?”  I’ll grant you that a certain percentage of powerful men – and men in general – are pervs.

But when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein, Harvey Weinstein, Roman Polanski, and a hundred other exploitative casting-couch purveyors and intern-abusing sleaze-balls like them, which political party has tolerated, covered for, and accepted them more?

And when Anthony gets to complaining about welfare abusers (Well, God, if you’re 5-foot-3 and you’re 300 pounds/ Taxes ought not to pay for your bags of fudge rounds.”), what can I say?  The Dems would rip him to shreds for even suggesting that any welfare recipients anywhere aren’t in danger of starving to death in the “food deserts” that evil AmeriKKKa has stuck them in.  

In his heartfelt but incorrect (IMO) political comments, Anthony criticizes the way his song is “being weaponized” by both sides.  He says the right are “trying to characterize me as one of their own, and the left trying to discredit me, I guess in retaliation.”

It’s not “retaliation,” Mr. Anthony.  They recognize (better than you do) that your song is an essentially conservative (or at least anti-leftist) attack on their power-hungry desire to totally control and micro-manage your life.  And when you read from Psalms at a concert and drape the stage with the American flag, they recognized that you’re an evil, non-Christophobe patriot, and therefore their enemy.  

Please just continue making music, and telling the truth in your lyrics.  And if you get the chance, contemplate why so many conservative fans are drawn to it, and so many progressives want to discredit it.

Finally, I’d like to get some feedback from you all about a video I recently posted on this webpage, which you can find by clicking on “Videos” at the top of the page.

While I really enjoy writing these columns, I’ve also been toying with the idea of making a short video every so often, in which I’ll share some thoughts and invite some discussion on any subject that is bothering or intriguing me at the time.   (I’m also going to be speaking with CO to explore the possibility of doing some podcast-style videos with him and some of the CO contributors and/or commenters.)

This video – the subject is “RINO fights” – is a test of the idea.  At 13 minutes it’s a little longer than I intended, and yes, I’m old and have a face made for radio, but I’d still like to hear what you think.  So please watch it if you’re interested, and then give me an honest take on it.  (Is it too long?  Too rambling?  Do you like it more or less than my written columns? Etc.)

Also, if you’d like to engage and comment on the subject matter, please feel free to do so here in the comments on the CO page.  I’m trying to figure out how you can comment on the video on my web page, but you can share it from there, at least.

Please let me know what you think.  And remember…

Biden delenda est!

“Dr.” Jill Biden/Hillary (the repulsive person, not the storm), 2024!

One quick note up front today –

For those of you who read my travelogue posts from England and Scotland, I’ve found some videos featuring the Scottish shepherd who showed us his amazing border collies rounding up sheep.  If you search by “Neil Ross Scottish shepherd” you’ll find half a dozen videos of him and his almost-as-smart-as-Cassie-the-Wonder-Dog collies.

(And you’ll wish that our country could be governed by a handful of Scots shepherds and a kennel-ful of border collies, somehow.)

You’re welcome.

Now, because you people are my sounding board for troubling thoughts on politics (not to mention the wind beneath my wings), I’ve got to share two grim thoughts that have been creeping me out lately.

First, the latest illegitimate charges against Trump out of Georgia are filling me with an anger that is not healthy, even though it’s justified.  Corrupt DA Fani (she got the homonym right, but not the spelling) Willis has done something I wouldn’t have thought possible: make sleazy Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s idiotic indictments look only mostly corrupt and merit-less.

Trying to apply RICO laws to people who did nothing worse than challenge a hinky-looking election is beyond idiotic.  Especially since half of the national Democrat party did the same or worse after every election a Republican has won since 2000.  Including Ass Willis herself! 

Sorry, that’s “Fanny.”  Er, “Fani.”

Second, even as I’m furious about the Dems’ shameless and outrageous behavior in bringing all of these indictments, I’m getting an increasingly sinking feeling that the more immoral Machiavellians amongst them are using our righteous anger against us.  Through their grotesque weaponizing of the justice system, they’ve just about ensured Trump’s nomination, by causing most of us to instinctively rally to his defense (which we absolutely should), and to support his candidacy (which I’m not so sure about).

I’m most worried that we might be falling prey to the Pauline Kael Syndrome. 

Kael was a leftist film critic for the New Yorker who is famously quoted as saying, after Nixon’s landslide presidential victory in 1972, “I can’t believe Nixon won.  I don’t know anybody who voted for him.”  (Her actual quote was a little different, but in a way that revealed her condescending provincialism even more blatantly.)

That’s a near-perfect example of the bubble mindset that most of us naturally have: because we are surrounded mostly by like-minded people, we assume that most people in the country agree with us.  So when we see how utterly terrible Biden is, we assume that everyone sees it.  (They largely do: around 70% of all Americans polled say they don’t want him to run!)

And when we see how phony and baseless the cases filed against Trump are (the only one with any merit at all – though it’s still unjustified – is the confidential docs case in Florida, and then only because Trump foolishly said on camera that he didn’t declassify them!), we assume that everyone else does too.

But the same polls that claim that around 70% of Americans don’t want Biden to run also claim that around the same percentage don’t want Trump to run.  I’m not inclined to trust polls completely (to say the least!), but I’m also aware of the danger of dismissing any poll whose results we don’t like. 

And it’s not just one or two polls from the usual-suspect leftist outlets.  The Real Clear Politics average of several dozen recent polls show Trump and Biden tied, or Biden with a small lead of 1-2% of the popular vote.  Battleground state polls are slightly worse, as Trump appears to be trailing in the key states that will decide the electoral college totals.  

If Trump’s right, and the 2020 election was rigged and/or stolen (I’m sure of the former, and uncertain but leaning toward the latter), we know that since the Dems got away with it, they’ll try the same thing again.  So why haven’t we heard of any concrete steps that the RNC or Trump campaign are taking now to ensure that ’24 won’t be just as rigged as ’20 was?   

To top that off, no polls that I’m aware of are showing Trump with the 4-5% lead that he’d need to overcome Dem dirty tricks.  And that’s after nearly three years of the worst presidency in our history, when he’s running against the clearly corrupt — and physically and mentally decomposing – Joey Gaffes!  

We don’t want to believe that.  In my heart, I can’t really believe it!  Biden is so terrible, and his administration such a dumpster fire.  The economy is so damaged, our voluntarily open borders are a national wound that will weaken us for many decades, etc. and etc.

But deep down, I’m dreading waking up on the morning after the election in Pauline Kael’s position: “I can’t believe that Biden won.  Nobody I know voted for him.”   

I don’t think it’s a done deal, and things could change.  And anytime you’re running against a candidate as awful as Brandon – assuming he’s the candidate next year – you’ve always got a chance. 

But man, I have never wanted to be wrong about something so badly in my life!

Enough of that – let’s focus on the positive:

We’ve almost arrived at my favorite season of the year, which is marked by the beginning of football.  (I can’t say autumn, because September and most of October here in Florida is really “Summer 2: The Humidity Scourge Continues.”)

I’ve enjoyed playing and watching all kinds of sports throughout my life, including baseball, basketball, tennis and football, along with a few others.

Not soccer, obviously.  Because I was raised properly, and understand the world. 

God gave us the amazing gift of hands, with the concomitant blessing of opposable thumbs (Suck it, sloths and most other creatures!), and they are good for almost anything. 

Carpentry.  Punching bullies.  Releasing the snap on a young woman’s bra (though I’ve only deployed that tactic on one woman since I met the love of my life, and all other women became invisible to me.) Typing hilarious political and cultural columns. 

Flipping off Joe Biden if you ever come across his path.

So when some dimwit invents a game that involves us spitting in our Creator’s eye and eschewing the use of our providentially provided hands – not to mention giving ourselves concussions by intentionally hitting a ball with our noggin, rather than from squaring up and driving through a ball carrier head-first, as said Creator intended – we’re supposed to participate?

Bah.  BAH, I say!

Anyway, I’ve enjoyed many games throughout my life, but the only one that has stuck is football.  And even though my Chicago Bears (you’ve probably heard that they thrilled the nation with their “T” formation) promise to be mediocre again this year, and my Gators are not likely to threaten for the SEC east, my spirits always lift as the first kickoff approaches.

I know that some members of the fairer sex (spoiler alert: there are only two) can experience some spousal neglect when God’s favorite sport begins, as reflected in an old joke:

Guy 1: Well, my wife has divorced me.

Guy 2: Really? Why?

Guy 1:  She claims I pay more attention to football than to her.

Guy 2:  That’s tough.  How long were you married?

Guy 1: Ten seasons.  

But if any of the fine ladies in CO nation start to resent their football-obsessed husbands, remember that it could be much worse.  Your hubby might ignore you for parts of each fall weekend, and he might get a little too loud when he’s speculating as to whether some referee can distinguish between his arse and a hole in the ground.

But at least you are safe in the knowledge that he’ll never dramatically announce his pronouns, or that he’d like to be called “Zoe,” and that he’s begun hormone therapy as a first step to becoming his essential self as a woman.  Or – even more disturbing… a soccer fan.

So you’ve got that going for you.  

Biden delenda est!

“Dr.” Jill Biden/Fani “What you talkin’ bout?” Willis, 2024!

The state of the 2024 race is so depressing that I’m not going to go into this weekend dwelling on it.  Instead, I’ve looked for other, more uplifting stories to write about:

My first good-news story comes from, of all places, Portland!  Four years ago, a violent leftist mob of (mostly peaceful) antifa scumbags – in the middle of several years of attacks and destruction – attacked Andy Ngo.  (He is a small Vietnamese-American gay journalist with the heart of a lion.) They threw projectiles at him, beat him with wooden signs and their fists, and threw noxious liquids on him, causing him severe injuries, including a brain injury. 

Tragically, none of them were beaten and imprisoned for many years.  But this week, in a Portland court-room (!), Ngo won a settlement from one of his attackers, and a judgment of $300K against three others.

His lawyer is conservative hoss Harmeet Dhillon (we could have had her as our RNC head, instead of RINO Ronna Romney-McDaniel!), and they both admit that they’ll have a hard time collecting the $300K, given the thugs’ “history of evasion.”

Not to mention their utter unemployability!  Look at a pic of one of the three, a pathetic dude named Joseph Evans who wears blue eye shadow and lipstick, and now identifies himself as a woman named “Sammich Overkill Schott-Deputy.”  (And no one has ever hollered at this delusional goon, “Make me a sammich!”) 

Right now his only chance to get hired anywhere is with the Biden administration’s nuke department, which has an opening since the bald, lipstick-wearing luggage-thief Sam Brinton is in the can.    

The next story proves that protesters in big Dem-run hell-hole cities like NYC CAN be arrested… but only if they are protesting their corrupt local government forcing illegal migrants into their neighborhoods. 

Several hundred citizens protested Democrats’ latest plan to create a 1000-bed tent facility on the grounds of what had been a nursing home (for elderly American citizens) in Queens.  Some protestors said inflammatory and outrageous things such as, “I don’t mind people coming here, but they’re coming here illegally, and then we have to support them.”

A dozen people practicing civil disobedience were arrested.  And this comes just a few months after the city agreed to pay $21,500 each to 320 leftist George Floyd protestors who had been “arrested, detained or subjected to force” by cops.  Great job!

Hey New Yorker taxpayers, aren’t you glad you get to pay off leftist protestors, and pay for the arrest of non-violent non-leftist protestors, and pay for many thousands of illegals who are costing you millions and further degrading your already diminished quality of life?

How’s that century-plus of voting Democrat working out for you?

But even NY Dems could have it worse.  They could be formerly living person Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner Group leader who clashed with Putin in the summer, and then coincidentally died this week in a totally coincidental plane crash.  

At this point the Putin News Network is about as trustworthy as CNN, MSNBC or the rest of our MSM.  So I have a few doubts about the veracity of Moscow’s account of Prigozhin’s death.  

Exhibit A: Prigozhin supposedly died along with 9 other people who were on a plane with him.  But that can’t be right, because you couldn’t find 9 people in Russia who would recognize that they were getting on a plane with the guy who screwed with Putin without all 9 of them doing whatever it took to get off that plane before it took off.

They’d be tumbling down that mobile airplane staircase like Biden tumbling up one!

Exhibit B:  This transcript of an interview between a Pravda Hack (let’s call him Jake Tappervich) and a dead-eyed Putin apparatchik that was leaked to me personally by one of my Kremlin insider sources:

Tappervich:  So you’re saying that Prigozhin died in a plane crash?

Putin Apparatchik (PA): Exactly.

Tappervich: Can we see the body?

PA: No.  Is very messy. When firing squad gets done with someone, you don’t want to show that on tv.

Tappervich:  Firing squad?  I thought you said it was a plane crash?

PA: Da, da.  Plane crash.

Tappervich: But you said, “firing squad.”

PA: Da.  Is Russian slang phrase for plane crash.  You know, like on 9/11, all the Russians were saying, “Can you believe both of those firing squads in NYC?” or “That Captain Sully, he successfully managed that firing squad in the Hudson River after hitting those geese.”

Tappervich: I speak Russian, and I’ve never heard that phrase before.

PA (squinting menacingly at Tappervich): Are you saying that President Putin is not fluent in Russian slang phrases?

Tappervich: No, no, of course not.  (nervously tugging at his necktie) So… has an official cause of death been announced.

PA: Da.  Many bullet wounds.

Tappervich (swallowing hard): Did you say, “bullet wounds?”

PA: Da.  As in, “when plane hits ground, it results in many bullet wounds.”

Tappervich:  So… that’s another Russian slang phrase?

PA. Da.  Like when we say, “President Putin’s last 8 rivals died after ‘falling out of high window.’”  Which of course is Russian phrase meaning “heart attack.”

And… scene.

Finally, let’s go to the“F— around and Find Out” file, to read the story of recidivist criminal and ineducable bonehead Cordelius Anthony Martin, who recently entered a convenience store in Cassopolis, Michigan, pulled a mask over his face, and announced a robbery. 

Sidebar: “Cassopolis” is a fantastic name for a small town. It’s got the great Greek ending of “polis” (meaning “city”), and the great first syllable of “Cass,” which is short for Cassie, who (as all well-informed people know) is my Wonder Dog. 

So Cassopolis, properly translated, is “Cassie City.”

As you might guess, Cassie City is one of those types of small towns referenced in the recent Jason Aldean song, “Try That in a Small Town.” 

And just as in that song, the lowlife Biden voter in this story did just that.  So feel free to pause here, pull up the video of that song, and play it softly in the background as you read the following account.  I’ll wait…

Okay, Cordelius – I’m assuming that if he had any friends (which I’m assuming he doesn’t), they’d call him “Cordy” – had armed himself with a box cutter.

Unfortunately for the Cord-ster, he was met not by a box – which would have been perfect for a crook carrying a boxcutter! – but by a clerk and a customer.  Judging by the clerk’s headgear, I think he was a Sikh.  And you know what that often means:

Stick fight! 

Usually in a stick vs. knife fight, the odds are pretty even.  The stick gives you longer reach and a chance to stay out of knife range and pummel the bad guy, if you are nimble, and have been well trained in the ancient Sikh arts of Stick Fu and Jui-stick-su.

On the other hand, a stick can’t easily open a carotid artery and wash the store in arterial spray.  So the knife guy has that going for him.

Unfortunately, the Sikh in question didn’t produce a stick.  Instead, he started to give up the cash to Cordelius.  (And at his home dojo, his Sikh sensei face-palmed himself in disgust.) 

Fortunately, all heroes don’t wear capes.  Sometimes they carry six-packs of light beer.  And that’s what the customer that night was carrying. 

But he was also carrying.  Because he had a concealed carry permit, and a pistol to go with it.   So it turns out that Cord-o had brought a boxcutter to a gunfight. 

Guess how that went?

Spoiler alert:  blam, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam, BLAM!

That’s right, the customer fired 7 shots.  And as I watched the store video, I heard the late Howard Cosell’s voice in my head: “Down goes Cordy!  Down goes Cordy!”

Tragically, one innocent liquor bottle was hit by one of the shots.  But three of the shots struck home, hitting Cordelius in the arm, back and face.  He dropped to the floor and tried to crawl away – as one does after being shot three times – but the gunman held him there until the police arrived.

The greatest detail in this story?  The armed citizen – whose name has not been released – never put down the beer! 

Most Americans in this situation would be expected to say something like, “Hold my beer, and watch me shoot this criminal.”  But not this man.  This amazing, admirable, anonymous man.  He said to himself, “I’m going to hold my own beer, and STILL shoot this criminal.”

Now some persnickety types might point out that firearms trainers would teach you to adopt a comfortable and stable shooting stance, use your dominant eye to aim while keeping the front and back sights of your pistol aligned, and hold the gun in both hands.  

But if they’re so smart, why don’t they advise you to shift your six pack from your dominant, shooting hand to your non-dominant hand before you draw and shoot a criminal? 

And do they even take into account how freaking cool you look, holding a six-pack in one hand and perforating a criminal with the other?

Admittedly, Cordelius survived the shooting, and sure, only three shots hit him.  But again: a lot of blood was spilled, but not one drop of beer.

So let’s focus on the big picture: No beer harmed.  The armed hero citizen is not being charged.  And since Cordelius was already a thrice-convicted felon, he’s now eligible for life in prison.  We call that a win-win-win. 

If only our national political life were going as well as things in Cassie City!

Biden delenda est!

“Dr.” Jill Biden/ Sammich Overkill Biden-Voter, 2024!

Well it seems that Hillary is in the news again.

And I don’t just mean Tropical Storm Hillary (and God bless all of those in that storm’s path), which I first saw in a headline that I assumed was a snarky attack on the Pant-Suited One.

No, I’m talking about the interview she gave to cute little guy Rachel Maddow talking about the bogus Georgia indictments of Trump.  That interview was a master class in sleaze, dishonesty and projection. 

Hillary started out by laughing uproariously about the latest indictment.   She tried to put on a serious face later – which was about as convincing as Liz Warren’s red face (#wemustneverstopmockingher) – and say that she did not “feel any satisfaction” from the impending show trials.  

She went so far as to insist that she felt “great profound sadness,” even as she struggled to keep a straight face.  (For the record, Ellen Degeneres, Martina Navratilova and Elton John all have way more convincing straight faces than the former First Enabler.)  

Maddow started the interview by complaining about how terrible it is for people to question the legitimacy of elections.  I swear that the following words actually came out of her mouth:

“If bad actors tell us falsely that every election was stolen, and that the only way an election is trustworthy is if they come out on top of it… it maybe wounds us as a democracy, and in a way that is hard to repair.  What do you think about how we get better, after the wounds that have been inflicted on us through this process?”

Now if Hillary had a shred of self-awareness at all, at this point she would have been sweating like Que Mala in church.  But no!  She had the gall to begin her response with this observation – and again, as God is my witness, I’m not making this up: “Well I think, you know, the truth matters.”   

She went on to lament the damage that has been done to, among other things, “our institutions” and “the rule of law.”  And she wasn’t talking about the damage done by her, or Stacey Abrams or Al Gore or Lurch Kerry or everybody at CNN and MSNBC, or any other filthy election deniers!

As regular readers may know, I’m not generally one to question the justness of God’s judgments – no matter how much this election cycle is making me feel like Job. 

But for that hideous woman to say that, and yet not be immediately turned into a pillar of salt (or alternatively, a pillar of fecal matter – which I think we all agree would be more appropriate, and which would require a lot smaller change in her chemical makeup), or at least having her pantsuit spontaneously burst into flames?

I’m just wondering if He might not owe Sodom and Gomorrah an apology, is what I’m saying.    

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Trump’s best accomplishment in office was appointing 3 mostly solid originalists to SCOTUS.  But only slightly trailing that one was preventing a Hillary Clinton presidency, and the boils, locusts, rivers of blood, and the many other plagues that would surely have descended upon us with the inauguration of the Cankled Colossus.

No matter how angry Trump has made me in the last several years, and how much I’m hoping that we don’t nominate him and lose next year, I’ll always be grateful to him for that.

Moving from the nefarious to the ineducable, let’s check in on how well the mayoralty of Brandon Johnson is going in Chicago.

What’s that?  You’re in Chicago, and you can’t concentrate on my truthful and wildly entertaining column because of all of the gunfire, and watching your life pass before your eyes? 

Ok.  Grab your laptop and drop to the floor, then crawl serpentine into your bathroom, and slither up and into your tub.  Now you’re in the most bulletproof part of your residence. 

So take a few deep, calming breaths.  Remind yourself that if one of those bullets has your name on it, you’ll at least have died doing what you loved: reading the Cautious Optimism site.

Besides, the problem is practically solved, now that the Democrat brain-trust running your city has come up with a new plan they call, “The People’s Ordinance.” 

I know: usually when you put “The People’s” in front of something – as in “The People’s Republic of Wherever” – it usually turns out to be a Schiff-show.  But this plan is different.  It’s grounded in—

Oh no, wait.  It’s pretty much the same.

This plan is being pushed by Alderperson Maria Hadden (of guess which party), and it calls for all of the heavily armed Biden-voting youngsters who have been turning the Miracle Mile into the OK Corral to agree to a ceasefire.

I know (again): Why didn’t we think of that?  Just ask the criminals to stop committing crimes!  Brilliant!

For those of you who may sarcastically mock such a plan as hopelessly naïve – not to mention dumb as a bag of AOCs – you’re missing the best part.  It’s not a call for a total ceasefire, because that’s just not realistic.

It’s a call for a ceasefire just from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. each day. 

Which makes perfect sense.  After being raised in fatherless homes and going to sub-par and dangerous public schools for years (run by guess which party?), these people are basically addicted to shooting people.  And you wouldn’t ask a chain smoker to just quit cold turkey, would you?

No.  You’d try to get him to gradually cut down from two packs a day, to a pack and a half, and then to a pack, and so on.

This is just like that.  If the addict you’re dealing with is a three-clip-a-day man, you don’t just say, “Murder is wrong, so don’t shoot at anyone for an entire day.” 

Instead, you listen to your wise alderman (from guess which party?) and say, “I know you usually go through three clips a day, but how about tomorrow, you try doing one less drive-by, and get by with firing four or five fewer bullets?”

Before you know it, they’ll be passing four elderly people a day, and three mothers with toddlers, and not busting a cap in more than one or two of their arses.

I wish I were making this up.  But listen to Tatiana Atkins (guess which party), explaining the plan: “Our goal is to approach our city’s gun violence problem strategically and not all at once. Things didn’t begin this way overnight, and change won’t happen overnight.”

Well no, not if you’re ceding the nighttime hours to the criminals! 

The only thing that’s going to be happening overnight is that law-abiding citizens will be putting on their Kevlar vests and Kevlar shin guards and Kevlar jockstraps – or maybe their chainmail dresses if they’re females, or Dylan Mulvaney types – and topping it off with a helmet from a suit of armor.

Then they’ll crawl into their bathtubs and try to read the Cautious Optimism site through the slats in their helmet visors as they reconsider their life choices.

I can’t believe that anybody in 2023 Chicago is still listening to these knuckleheads.  The people behind “The People’s Ordinance” are asking for the thugs to thug only after 9:00 p.m to reduce risks for Chicagoans who are “not involved in high risk activities.”

Sweetheart, the vast majority of Chicagoans have been voting for Democrat candidates and policies for the last 100 years, and that is the very definition of a “high risk activity!”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when I saw a pic of a wooden fence, brightly hand-painted with this message: “Don’t Shoot!  I want to grow up.” 

Yes, and people in hell want ice water, too.  But if they keep voting for Dems and pro-criminal policies, they end up in hell.

With no ice water. 

And that’s why, today and every day, we must say…

Biden delenda est!

“Dr.” Jill Biden/Alderman Maria “Please don’t shoot, it’s only 8:30!” Hadden, 2024!

Today I’ll start with some of the usual political foolishness, but I’m going to end with a personally scary story about something that happened to my daughter at Oxford after we left there.

First, after lavishing the Scots with praise during my columns on our recent trip to England and Scotland, I now have to criticize them, at least to the extent of acknowledging that their woke academics are as pathetic as our own. 

This past spring semester, the University of the Highlands and Islands gave a ridiculous trigger warning to their history and literature students who were assigned to read Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea.  The notice cautioned students that the book contains “graphic fishing scenes.” 

It’s been a long time since I read that – it wasn’t my favorite from Hemingway – but my first instinct was to wonder whether I could possibly have forgotten some gross scene that featured a human vs. fish sexual encounter! 

Because it’s 2023, and everything has gone insane. 

But nope.  The “graphic fishing scenes” are just scenes about… deep sea fishing. 

Just promise me that Disney doesn’t get hold of the copyright, because you know that if they remake a movie about that book, there’ll be some graphic fishing scenes, all right.  But they’ll be graphic because they tell the heartwarming tale of a trans-marlin who suddenly identifies as a turtle, and begins a torrid affair with a gay Cuban fisherman.  (Working title:  Broke Back Tortoise.)

Or better yet, the marlin doesn’t just realize that he’s a turtle, but that he’s a FEMALE turtle.  (Working tagline for the publicity campaign: “He puts the “gal” in Galapagos!”)

Seriously though, the proud Scots fought the ferocious Roman legions to a draw, and now they’re going to get their kilts over their heads over some fishing scenes?  They obviously haven’t been eating enough haggis!

In a surprisingly happy outcome to a California story, it turns out that the two Sikh store employees at a 7-11 who did God’s work by playing a little stick music on a career criminal who brazenly tried to steal a giant barrel full of cigarettes are NOT going to be charged with any crime.

While all normal people praised their performance (My review on Yelp, if I knew how to use Yelp: “Best percussion performance since I saw the Blue Man Group!  Two thumbs up!  Encore, please!”) we all feared that some Soros-ion DA would threaten the Sikhs with the death penalty or life in prison.

But the wave of public outcry over that possibility appears to have helped, and now the only one facing charges is the would-be thief, 42-year-old Tyrone Frazier.  

While reading a story about the case in the Business & Politics Review, I learned a few things I hadn’t known about Frazier.  His mug shot showed that his face is covered with bad prison ink.  (I’m shocked, I tells ya!)  At the time of his “let’s take my fists to a stick fight” encounter, he had multiple active warrants out for his arrest.  (Shocked!)  

And best of all, the cops came across him in the first place because HE had called THEM “complaining of pain from being struck by a stick.”   You’d have to have a heart of stone to not laugh at that.  Or at the wiseguy cops, who in their report noted drily that, “Frazier refused to provide further information on how he obtained his injuries.” 

I bet he did.  Because it wouldn’t help his street cred amongst the Biden-voting criminal community – “Now accepting MS13 gang bangers and criminals from all over the world!” – to admit that he ran head-on into a heat-Sikh-ing stick!  (Yes, that’s a bad dad joke, but a damn fine one.)

I paraphrase Uncle Jesus: “Sikh and you shall find… an arse whipping in a 7-11 if you try to rob it!”   (So let it be written.  So let it be done.) 

Turning to my scary personal story…

On Friday I posted the third and last part of my account of our trip to England and Scotland.   (And thank you for all of your kind responses.)  As you’ll recall, we spent the first two days of that trip at Oxford with my youngest daughter Emily, who was taking a summer study-abroad class there. 

We got back from our trip on July 27^th.  (The columns were so delayed because I was too busy soaking up the UK goodness during the trip to write more than anything but notes.)  Because Emily’s course lasted until this past week, she was still in Oxford when we got a call last Tuesday evening from two of her friends.

They were with her in the Radcliffe Hospital there. 

Her whole class had gone punting on the Thames that day, and there had been an accident.  A “punt” is a flat-bottomed boat propelled by a person in the back who uses a long metal pole to push off of the river bottom.  (We saw some Oxford students getting the punts out one morning; going punting is a popular activity for students to do themselves, and to do with tourists to earn extra money.)

Somehow the punter lost control of the pole, and it smacked Emily very hard in the forehead.  She was dazed, and the university chaperone got her to the hospital quickly.  By the time her friends called us, a doctor had been in to assess Emily, and scheduled a CT scan, which she was now waiting for. 

The girls told us that Em wasn’t bleeding and that she hadn’t lost consciousness or vomited.  But they told us that for a short time after getting hit, she wasn’t able to speak, and when the doctor asked what her birthday is, she couldn’t remember it.  She definitely had a concussion, and Karen and I naturally started freaking out.

And then Emily spoke.  “I- I- I’m o- o- I’m o- o- okay.”

And Karen burst into tears, and my heart leapt into my throat.  This kid is a very verbal, fast-talking and whip-smart astro-physics student, and she sounded like John freaking Fetterman! 

She tried to stutter out another sentence to calm us down, and I told her to stop trying to reassure us!

The phone connection was bad, and Karen asked her friends to call us again when the doctor came back.  As soon as she hung up, she got on the computer to check on flights from Orlando to London.  We’d only been home for 4 days, and were kicking ourselves that we hadn’t stayed longer. 

I don’t think the distance across the ocean has ever felt longer to anyone since Columbus set sail with three rickety ships. 

Three hours later we got another call from the girls.  The docs had come in and taken Emily for a CT scan, then came back and announced that the results were “good,” and had released her to go back to her dorm.  But they had been in and out so quickly that the girls hadn’t been able to call us in time for us to speak to them.    

While the CT results were good news, the best news was that Emily talked to us from the hospital room before being released, and she sounded a lot better than before.  She was putting complete sentences together, and even though she didn’t sound like her normal self – “I can’t think of words right.” – she was much improved.

Over the next two days, she made good progress, and we decided not to fly over.  We talked to our daughter the nurse and to the doctors we know, one of whom consulted with a doc who runs a cutting-edge concussion clinic (the advantage of living in a university town with a top-level SEC football program!), and Emily’s recovery was following what they’d laid out as a best-case scenario.

A day after saying “I can’t think of words right,” she told Karen, “I couldn’t process language correctly.”  She had three or four days of wicked headaches and recurring nausea, but her “fuzzy brain” feeling receded more and more. 

The day after the concussion, she skipped her first class but attended her second, even though we and her chaperone had told her to take at least 2 days off, and maybe more.  She swears she has no memory of that, and considering the other holes in her memory, that might be true.  But she’s also a driven and ambitious kid, and I can see her trying to get back to it too quickly.

Oddly enough, when her professor told the chaperone he was surprised to see her in class after he’d been informed about her concussion, he also said that she had made some of the most intelligent comments in class that day.  When we asked Emily about that – after yelling at her for going to class –she said that she’d said something in class, but she couldn’t remember what it was.

The moral of that story: even with a serious head injury, the average Simpson is still smarter than a Democrat Senator from Pennsylvania!

But right after going to that class, she had a headache, and sat on the floor beside her toilet for half an hour, feeling like she had to vomit.  After that, she took direction better.  She slept 15 hours the next day, and then slowly got back into the swing of things.  She still needs to write her two final papers, which her profs agreed to take late, even though the class ended on Friday.

Tonight we picked her up at the airport, and we’ve got her back under our roof, and we couldn’t be happier.  Our daughter is still herself, but with some occasional headaches that we are going to over-react to, even though the docs say they are normal.

For the first time in 10 days, Karen and I are going to sleep well tonight.  I haven’t been this relieved – and politics haven’t seemed less important – in a long, long time.

Still…

Biden delenda est!

We left Edinburgh and drove back into England, stopping briefly in a rural area where we saw about 80 surviving yards of Hadrian’s Wall, built by the Romans around 120 to establish some border control and keep the Scots out. 

That particular section of the wall is not overly impressive – the nearby St Andrew’s Church was built in 650, largely of stones taken from the old Roman wall – but I enjoyed seeing it for several reasons, beyond my usual love of history.

First, because borders – and border walls – obviously work.  How did everybody know that 2000 years ago, but Brandon’s brain-trust doesn’t know that today?!

Second, because it reminds me of the cantankerous Scots, and their rebellious spirit that was passed down to my hillbilly ancestors in Appalachia.  I love the idea that the Roman legions – the most intimidating military force in the world at that time – could whip some Scots in some skirmishes and battles, but they never stayed whipped.

Until finally even the mighty Romans threw up their hands.  “Just when these highlander-billies seem like they’re beaten, they get all wound up on scotch and haggis, and they come back at us again.  Screw it, let’s just build a wall.  Our empire will stretch from Africa to right here, and beyond the wall it will be nothing but barbarians and bagpipes.”

And the Scots said, “Aye.  You may have catapults and legions and the Emperor Hadrian, but we’ve got ‘the chieftain of the pudding race’!  Haggis!!”

It’s funny to think that 1900 years ago, the Romans wouldn’t go into the highlands to mess with the Scots, and 100 years ago, the federal revenuers wouldn’t go into the hollers of Kentucky to mess with some of the same stubborn people.   Good on ‘em.

Our other main stop that day was in the great medieval (and earlier, Roman) town of York.  We spent half the day there, and it wasn’t enough.  We saw the original city walls, and the Shambles – Europe’s best preserved Medieval street – but we spent most of our time in the spectacular York Minster gothic cathedral. 

The size and beauty of the cathedral – it took 250 years to complete, and is one of the largest in Europe – is hard to describe.  It would take days to fully appreciate all of the statuary and carvings, stained glass windows, and tombs and painted wooden figures throughout.  We went down into a crypt area, and through a Plexiglas floor could see the remains of the original Roman fort walls, along with the first Norman church built there centuries later. 

During the next day, we spent a lot of time on the road, but our main stop was a highlight for me: Stratford-upon-Avon, the birthplace of the greatest of the dead white males, Shakespeare.

(Not to be confused with the whitest of the live white females, who is far from great: Lizzie Warren.) (#wemustneverstopmockingher)

The weather was beautiful, sunny and cool, and we did a drive through in the bus to orient us, and then were let out for about 2 hours.  We took a walk to the river and then down a street past Shakespeare’s daughter’s house and the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, down into a lovely park running along the river.  We walked a shady path and watched a few rowers on the river, along with a swan. 

At the end of that park was the Holy Trinity Church, where Shakespeare is buried at the altar.  (Unfortunately there was about to be a concert, so we couldn’t get up to the front to see Shakespeare’s grave up close.) 

We walked back to the center of the oldest part of town, past the grade school that Shakespeare attended, and the spot where the new house that he bought when he returned from London as a financial success once stood.  The dope who ended up owning it in the 1800s tore it down! 

A few blocks further we saw the Shakespaw Cat Cafe, a quaint little place boasting a room containing some mellow rescue cats and a traditional three-course afternoon tea.  My wife and daughter stayed there, while my brother-in-law and I walked on and took a tour of Shakespeare’s childhood home, which was as primitive and cool as you’d expect.  In the museum along with it, I got to see a Shakespeare 2nd folio, along with a lot of other great artifacts.

We made it back to London by around 4:00, and after dinner we took a last, long walk around town.  Our hotel was in Kensington, and a two-mile stroll down Kensington Road brought us to the Albert Memorial, an impressive tribute to Victoria’s husband, which sits on the edge of Kensington Gardens, across the road from the Royal Albert Hall. 

The central memorial – focused on a guilded statue of a seated Prince Albert – also features allegorical sculptures depicting industrial arts and sciences valued by the Victorians, including agriculture, commerce, engineering and manufacturing.  A frieze that circles the main structure contains images of famous sculptors, composers, painters, poets, architects and engineers.

The whole thing occupies a square, at the four corners of which are four more sculpted groupings of people and one large animal, each one symbolizing a part of the British empire.  The Americas grouping features a bison, the African one a camel, the Asian one an elephant, and the European one a bull.   (Google the memorial for views of the many sculptures.)

I had a great time on this trip, and packed a lot into 12 days.  In addition to spending time with my two top-shelf daughters, I got to see Oxford, Stratford, 2 early Shakespeare folios, 3 Roman towns, multiple castles, half a dozen great churches, and 5 amazing border collies at work.  I also ate haggis 3 times, and lived to tell the tale.

Plus, unlike during the CO and COW’s vacation (God bless them!), the country we were visiting didn’t burn down when we were there!

So we’ve got that going for us.

Since I’ve been home and had some time to reflect, three thoughts from this trip have been running through my mind.

First, I don’t think I’ve ever realized how small the UK is compared to America.  My home state of Florida (I wasn’t born here, but I got here as soon as I could) covers just under 70K square miles.  All of England is only 50K; Scotland is 30K, and Wales is only 8K.  As the crow flies, London (in southern England) is only 300 miles from the Scottish border, and less than 500 miles from the farthest we got up into the Scottish highlands.  (My north Florida home is 2500 miles from the Canadian border!) 

A corresponding realization is just how much England/UK has punched above its weight throughout history.  The idea that so many great writers, thinkers, builders and inventors lived here, and that so many great events of history took place here – all in a place not much bigger than my state – is mind boggling.   

My second thought is an appreciation of the civilizational confidence on display in the sights we saw, in both religious and secular contexts.   The Albert Memorial is perhaps the best distillation of the pride taken in a globe-straddling empire on which the sun never set, but the various palaces and castles also represented impressive accomplishments: Buckingham Palace and Windsor castle in England, Cardiff Castle in Wales, and Blair and Edinburgh Castles in Scotland all bespeak wealth, and military and engineering prowess.

The many churches we saw were also mesmerizing.  The soaring ones like St. Paul’s and York Minster over-awe visitors with their sheer size and grandiosity, but I found that smaller ones, such as St. John the Baptist near Windsor Castle, Christ Church and the many chapels of Oxford, and Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland also had their charms.

The church I found most aesthetically pleasing overall was St. Andrews Presbyterian church in the small town of Fort William, Scotland.  You can find a picture online of the interior of the church: stone walls containing deep-set gothic arches with stained glass, an elaborately decorated altar area up front, all beneath a gorgeous, steep wooden ceiling, supported by symmetrical arches of beautifully carved, dark-wood trusses and buttresses.      

Even if I were atheist or agnostic, these places would move me.  The amount of effort and dedication they took to create is hard to fathom.  At York Minster I read about the building of the cathedral, and put myself in the shoes of a stone mason in the year 1220.  He began working on the massive foundation of a cathedral that he knew he would never see completed. 

If he were lucky, he might live to see one of the transepts completed in 40 years or so.  But he knew that even if his children took his trade, his son would never see the building completed, and not his grandson, either.  As it happened, the structure was finally finished in 1470, 250 years and 12 generations later! 

My final thought is a melancholy one, involving the seemingly frivolous, unserious and less accomplished society of our time compared to theirs.  The sublime churches are mostly empty of worshippers; the faith that built them and inspired the greatest artists and thinkers of many generations has receded like a once-beautiful and life-giving lake after a long and devastating drought. 

As a Christian, that is a depressing thought, and an ominous one.  Once the West’s civilizational confidence lost its foundational Judeo-Christian worldview, it rested less steadily on purely civic and patriotic foundations.  As the decades have gone on, the left has chipped away and undermined those bulwarks.

Our greatest historical figures are denigrated as just a bunch of dead, white males.  Our past accomplishments are sneered at as colonialism and oppression, healthy patriotism derided as jingoism and prejudice, and our virtues and sacrifices dismissed as dishonest cover for the trendy sins of this age (racism, sexism, whiteness, etc.). 

I am praying for a return to an ordered and reasonable faith, but I can’t say that the prospects look good for that.  Without it, I can’t see how we can counter the ascendant religions of the day – not just explicit religions like an aggressive Islam, but the atheistic equivalents of proselytizing religions such as socialism, “neutral” multiculturalism, or nihilistic materialism.  

I don’t see any of those ideological systems yielding to the kind of desiccated, fractious, and insecure and self-flagellating secularism of our post-Christian societies. 

When I was growing up in farm country, I heard the saying, “You should never eat your seed corn.”  Today you live off of this year’s harvest, but you set aside what you need to plant for next year, which ensures your future.

I loved our trip, and I liked the people I met in England, Scotland and Wales.  They’ve got rich history, beautiful land, and an amazing patrimony – architecturally, artistically and intellectually.  I just hope that they are not living too much off of past glories.

But I’m afraid that they, as well as we in America, may be eating their seed corn, culturally speaking.   

On the other hand, every generation is another chance to turn things around.  And we are cautious optimists, after all. 

The first step to improving things is clear, at any rate:

Biden delenda est!    

Before I get on to the rest of our England and Scotland trip, I have to give a hat tip to some anonymous commenter who described our intrepid Prez and VP team absolutely perfectly.  He called them “Sh*ts and Giggles.”

After what seems like 37 years of the disastrous Biden-Que Mala term – with him pooping on the pope and her yammering on about Venn diagrams and electric schoolbuses – I salute you, anonymous wiseguy.

Our first week in England ended in Liverpool, and from there we drove up into the Lake District, where we hit the only vigorous rain of our trip, though we still took a scenic boat trip on Lake Windemere and had some good fish and chips at a very quaint 300-year-old pub/restaurant.  

From there we moved on into Scotland, where we spent four days.   We got to take in most of the green, hilly countryside under cloudy skies, but the brief interludes of full sun made us appreciate the scenery even more.   We took a boat ride on Loch Lomond, and saw a Commando Memorial – a 17-foot-tall bronze rendering of three impressive WWII soldiers near what had been a training base from which they shipped out to kill Nazis.

We had a scenery stop at Glencoe, where three craggy mountains are in close proximity, and mark the site of a famous 1692 massacre of the MacDonalds by the Campbells.  (The tales of fiercely independent, warlike people, with intermittent feuding and long memories, seemed oddly familiar, consider the Scots-Irish part of my dad’s bloodline.)

We spent a night at a beautiful rustic hotel in the highlands, and after supper we took an excursion to a sheep farm that was one of the highlights of the trip.  We met Neil, one of two remaining shepherds in the area, and he put his 5 impressive border collies through their paces.  We stood in an empty pasture near a ridgeline, and while facing us and with the dogs behind him, Neil demonstrated various whistles.

He’d say that this whistle told the dog to go left and sprint; then he’d give a fairly quiet whistle, and a gorgeous black-and-white collie tore off down the left side of the pasture.  Neil said that the next whistle meant stop, and the dog skidded to a halt like a cartoon character.

The next whistle had the dog walking comically slowly, like Wile E. Coyote trying to sneak up on somebody.  The next whistle meant walk normally, and the dog did.  Then Neil gave the sprint whistle again – all without looking toward the dog – and that good boy tore away like he’d just seen Liz Warren, and mistaken her for a ghost. 

(On account of how ghastly white she is.)  (#wemustneverstopmockingher)

The dog disappeared over the nearest small ridgeline.  And after a minute or two, a herd of maybe 90 sheep came thundering over that crest, with the dog racing back and forth behind them, his fur flying and his teeth bared and tongue lolling in what looked like the smile of a creature doing exactly what God made him for.

I’d count anyone lucky who has half a dozen moments in a given year when he’s as happy as that collie when he’d brought that herd of sheep back to Neil.

I asked Neil what dog breeds he thinks are most intelligent, and he said that he’s worked with several herding breeds over the years, but the border collie is the smartest, and it’s not close.   (Because he’s never met Cassie the Wonder Dog and therefore doesn’t know any better, I didn’t hold that against him.)

Neil also said that there’s no such thing as bad dogs, only bad owners, because any time he’s met an allegedly problem dog, the owner was the actual problem. 

Sidebar: When I got back home and read the stories about Joe Biden’s dog Commander, who has bitten half a dozen secret service agents and WH personnel, just like his previous dog Major, who did the same thing, that made perfect sense. 

In addition to being a lousy father and a terrible president, Brandon is a total failure as a dog owner.  And none of us are the least bit surprised. 

We spent two days in Edinburgh, and had a great time.  I’ve seen pictures of the old castle on the top of the cliff in the middle of town, but pictures don’t really do it justice.  We got a tour of the old town from a local guide, had a dinner with touristy entertainment provided by a bagpiper and a couple of Scottish dancers, and wandered the impressive old city, finding one cool “close” (a tiny, narrow alley between buildings) after another.

One close opened into a small courtyard, where my brother-in-law and I came across a Writer’s Museum, in a three-story built in the 1600s.  (Google it.) The building was gorgeous, with one floor dedicated to each of the big three Scottish writers: Robert Burns, Robert Louis Stevenson and Walter Scott. 

Scott has an impressive statue in the middle of town, and Adam Smith (a hero of mine, as he is of all right-thinking economists) has a smaller one not far from the castle.  A bunch of kids were acting the fool around his statue, and I was barely able to restrain myself from knocking their hats off and telling them to show some respect. 

(I had the same instinct in many churches all over England and Scotland.)

I really liked Scotland and the Scots, for several reasons, including their proper appreciation of dogs.  In every small or medium sized town where we spent any time, many dogs accompanied their Scots owners – along with Welsh dogs in Wales, and English ones in the Lake District, too. 

(Walter Scott’s statue – and many paintings and sculptures of Burns – included a faithful dog at the great man’s side.)

I also like the Scots’ national self-confidence.  I ate haggis three times, and while the last was the best, it still wasn’t great.  But man, are the Scots proud of their national flower (the thistle), their writers, and their haggis!

That last meal was a dinner in a small town in the countryside, maybe 20 miles from Edinburgh, in a restaurant owned by the same family for many generations.  Two other tour groups were there with us, and I’m sure that the owner’s performance is partially a tourist-driven exercise.

But there was no mistaking their national pride, either.  The owner sang a melancholy song by Robert Burns in a very nice baritone, and then he announced the introduction of the haggis. 

A bagpiper in the back of the room belted out a tune – I like bagpipe music, though a little of it goes a long way – and as he slowly piped his way in a serpentine path among the tables, a waitress followed him, holding high a platter with the haggis.  As she passed each table, she lowered the dish so that the appreciative audience could see it.

When they had both made their way to the stage, the piper and the owner dribbled the top of it with Scotch, as they recited alternating verses of a Robert Burns poem called – I’m not making this up – “Address to a Haggis.”    

They recited the poem – one in partly confusing Scots English, and the other in regular English, and it was amazing.  It started by addressing the haggis and praising it (“Good luck to you and your honest, plump face/ Great chieftain of the pudding race!”), and ended by attributing Scottish martial bad-assery to their terrible national meal:

“But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,

The trembling earth resounds his tread,

Clap in his ample fist a blade,

He’ll make it whistle;

And legs, and arms, and heads will cut off

Like the heads of thistles.

You powers, who make mankind your care,

And dish them out their bill of fare,

Old Scotland wants no watery stuff,

That splashes in small wooden dishes;

But if you wish her grateful prayer,

Give her [Scotland] a Haggis!”

Good lord!  I tried to imagine America – after these dispiriting recent years – having that kind of patriotic pride about a national dish, and it beggars the imagination.

Can you picture an American host singing the national anthem, then announcing the entrance of the hamburger?  A guitarist could weave through the room (probably playing a Johnny Cash song), followed by a pretty waitress displaying a giant burger on a silver tray to all of the foreign tourists in the place.

When they’d made their way to the stage, the host could dribble some Kentucky bourbon over the opened bun, while he and the guitarist recited an Ode to the Burger:

“You may be named for Hamburg drear,

but you have been perfected here.

And while foreigners about their foods prattle,

you are the finest gift from cattle.”

And a closing that ties American military prowess to the hamburger? 

“While pathetic vegans, weak and pale,

choke down their gruel and at life fail,

our armies triumph like conquering lords

with bellies full of Angus and Hereford!

We won at Bastogne and Peleliu,

but not by slurping beef-less faux stew.

So let your soy boys eat their swill,

we’ll feed on the bounty of the grill!”  

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m a little choked up, and in need of a few shots of Knob Creek 9. 

Next up: my third and final entry about our trip.  In the meantime, as always…

Biden delenda est!