A Tropical Storm, an Olympic Hero, and Kamala’s VP Choices (posted 8/5/24)

I’m posting this column earlier than usual because stately Simpson manor is a couple of hours into the first bands of a tropical storm coming through, and I expect that at some time overnight we’ll be losing power for at least a little while.

I know what you’re thinking: shouldn’t I be boarding up the windows and battening down the hatches and prioritizing my own survival, because if this nation loses me at this crucial juncture, America may not survive?

To which I can only say that you’re being a little bit of a Dylan Mulvaney-esque drama queen. Because if I do perish in the storm, there is at least a 45-to-55% chance that America survives without me.  And I didn’t get to where I am in the CO nation by NOT mocking leftists and providing conservative insights into current events, just because my life may be in danger.

And before you can ask me another question that could prolong this introduction, no, I don’t like to throw around the word “hero” lightly.  And I think you can complete the rest of that thought.

Okay, so I’ve got time for two topics: the rise of an Olympic hero, and Que Mala’s choice of VP.    

As regular readers know, I’ve not been a fan of this Olympics so far, because the people who run it appear to be idiots.  After mocking my Lord and Savior to kick things off, and then allowing a couple of dudes to beat the crap out of female boxers, the Olympics were just about dead to me.

Sure, I might drop in and pay a little attention, I mean, if my wife is watching or something.  Or when something hilarious happens, as when the Muslim Jew-hating judoist got his arm dislocated by a Japanese judoist, momentarily acting as God’s agent on earth.

And yes, I’m not sure what participants in judo are called.  And I’m pretty sure that it’s not “judoists.” But my level of caring is as low as AOC’s IQ, so I’m not going to spend the time to open Duckduckgo.com (not commie Google, which you should never use) and check. 

Or when the US Olympic female basketball team is unable to sell tickets because they left Caitlin Clark back in the states, resulting in the organizers having to practically give away tickets for yesterday’s game because of the anemic crowds.  Unexpectedly!

Good!  I hope the team is beaten by Gambia, or Burkina Faso, or by a bunch of judoists from Tongo who mistakenly wander out onto the court and decide to try their hand at basketball for the first time ever. 

So yeah, I have no positive reasons to watch the Olympics.   

But then my amazing wife showed me a short video of the coolest Olympian of this (or possibly any) age: the Turkish pistol-shooting guy. 

I watched the first 15 seconds of it and then insisted that she email it to me immediately.  She rolled her eyes and said, “You’re going to write about this, aren’t you?”  And I said, “How could I NOT?” 

Because really, how? 

I know what you’re thinking: Normally, when you hear “Turkish guy with a gun,” you don’t immediately jump to “feel-good story” or “my personal hero!”  Added to that, his first name is “Yusuf.” 

And that makes it even worse.  When you hear the set-up, “Let me tell you about an armed Turk named Yusuf,” your only question is, “Let me guess, his last name is al-Ghoul, and he really hates the Juden?”

But no.  Not this guy. 

By now you’ve heard about him.  He’s Yusuf Dicek

First off, I didn’t know there was a pistol competition in the Olympics.  I knew they had that weird thing where you ski for a while, and then stop and shoot a rifle, and then ski some more.  But I figured that was just something Finland came up with and snuck into the Olympics in the 30s, as a clever way to entice their young men to train for shooting a lot of Russians who would be needing shot in the coming Winter War.

But the Olympics have a pistol competition too, so good for them.   (In fact, a little more pistol shooting and a little less Christ-mocking would be my suggestion for all future olympics.)

Anyway, all of the Olympic pistolists (again: life is too short to look up names for obscure-sport details) are “decked and teched,” as they say.  (Actually no one says that.  I just made it up, but I like the way it sounds.) They’ve got coordinated and branded outfits made of high-tech fabrics, with sponsors’ names and their countries’ Olympic logo on them.  They’re using futuristic pistols that look vaguely like what Arnold’s enemies in the future used in the first Terminator.

And they’ve got headgear. Oh have they got headgear!  Stuff that you’d expect Schlomo Bond to have.  (Yes, I’m trying to make that a running joke.)

Headsets that offer ear protection, noise cancelling, hypnotic sub-sonic tone generators, and probably high-def Sirius radio.  They wear glasses that were personally made after biometric scans of the shooters’ retinas were fed into a super-computer which then fashioned each lense in a sterile lab in Switzerland, I’m guessing.

Some of the glasses come with one lense blacked out, to favor the pistolist’s strongest eye.  (I call those the “Moshe Dayans,” and they look impressive.) (And yes, FYI, “I’ll take ‘bad-ass Israeli military commanders for 1000,’ Alex.”)  

So the best prima donna pistolists on the planet are all sitting around with their entourage of coaches and technical assistants, going over their millions of dollars’ worth of gear and guns, and in walks Yusuf Dicek.  And one of the coaches said, “Did anybody order kebob?  The delivery guy is here.”

Dicek stood out in that crowd.  First off, he’s 51 years old.  Because as everyone knows, your eyesight really peaks in your early 50s!  (I’d had very good vision my whole life, but when I reached my early 40s and was taking an eye test to get my pilot’s license, I started guessing at letters on the chart, and the doc wrote some notes on my file that amounted to, “It is illegal for you to ever fly an aircraft without wearing glasses.”)

So there’s Dikec, wearing tennis shoes, a pair of what looked like Dockers, and a t-shirt with “Turkiye” on it that looked like he’d picked it up from a street vendor right outside for 2 euros.  (I later found out that that’s Turkey’s official t-shirt.  Which tells us that Turkey apparently doesn’t have a big “olympic apparel” budget.)

Instead of fancy ear protection, he had a couple of yellow foam things that I get from Lowes when I’m going to be using power tools a lot.  He also wore glasses that looked like a pair of cheaters from Wal-Mart.  (“Are you just using those for reading?  If so, a 1.5 magnification should be fine.  What’s that?  You’ll be in a shooting competition in the Olympics in a half-hour?  Better take the 2.0s”)

As the other pistolists were assuming unnatural stances that combine the posture of a yoga nut, a ballerina in the Bolshoi, and a Prussian officer in 1878 standing at attention, Dicek stepped up to the line, put one hand in his pants pocket (!) and aimed with his other hand.  

If you look up “nonchalant” in the dictionary, you’ll see a picture of this guy getting ready to shoot.  He looked as calm as some ne’er-do-well who just finished a sleeve of pot brownies knocking over a 7-11 in Bakersfield.  I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had turned the gun sideways before he started shooting, like the dumbest gang-banger in Chicago’s mostly peaceful weekend shootouts. 

So there he was, looking like a guy getting ready to try to win his wife a stuffed animal at a crooked carnival’s rigged shooting gallery.  And he started to shoot WITH BOTH EYES OPEN! 

Now almost the only shooting I’ve ever done was at pop bottles and cans with a b.b. gun, and at imaginary Nazis with a cap gun.  But even I know that when you’re zeroing in for that head shot on Hitler, you’re supposed to close your weak eye and squint like hell through your strong one. 

And as I went back to watch Dikec’s competition, I saw that sure enough, they all shoot with one eye closed.  Even the ones without the space-age Moshe Dayan glasses.

Not Dicek.  He was there to smoke hookah and shoot bullseyes.  And he was all out of hookah.   

Unfortunately, Dicek only won silver.  And the guy who won gold, standing next to him, had a ridiculous Willy Wonka-looking piece of headgear on. So Dicek definitely won on style points. 

What’s that?  The Olympics don’t award style points?

Okay, I’m out again.   

Topic 2:  Que mala’s possible VP choices. As of the middle of last week, contenders mentioned include Shapiro from PA, Bashear from KY, Mark Kelly from AZ, and Mayor Pete. 

The governors of MI and NC had reportedly been in contention earlier, but they apparently didn’t just fall out of a coconut tree, because they were smart enough to back slowly out of the room when asked about being tied to Que Mala’s political fortunes.

In the last several days, though, the field seems to have been winnowed down to Kelly and Shapiro, with the latter now being the favorite.  But I was really hoping for Mayor Pete.

Because now that he’s back from paternity leave – and who amongst us can gainsay the kind of physical toll taken on his body by not carrying a baby in his non-existent womb for nine months, and then going through many hours of pretend labor pains, following by the miracle of passing that baby through his non-existent birth canal, and don’t get him started on how he’s coping with the non-existent episiotomy stitches and unsightly non-existent stretch marks – he’s rested and ready to hit the ground running. 

While wearing his pristine first-ever pair of work boots and his hard hat that looks every bit as authentic on his pointy little head as that tanker headgear looked on Mike Dukakis.  

So why would I be rooting for him to make the ticket?  Simple: for years the Dems have been caterwauling about how toxic masculinity has been ruining American society, so I’d love for them to show the world what a presidential ticket with literally zero masculinity – toxic or otherwise – looks like.

However, as of now it looks like Pete is destined to be always the bridesmaid and never the non-child-bearing bride.

Conventional political thinking would say the Cackler should go with PA’s popular governor Shapiro, because he could conceivably nudge the crucial battleground state into the blue column in November.

But wait.  Shapiro is Jewish.  And there are a number of Dem voters – most importantly in Michigan, but also throughout the country and in congress – who are jihadi sympathizers and really hate Jews.  So smart insiders say that if Shapiro doesn’t get the nod, the most likely reason is the religious bigotry of many Democrats.  (I’m paraphrasing just a tad, for greater clarity.)

I’ve always thought that the main theological school of thought motivating the national Democrats was their religious commitment to atheist, destructive socialism.  But now it appears that the anti-Semitic tail may be wagging the Marxist dog. 

Well done, Democrats!

Hamas delenda est!

Things Wrong With the World: the Olympics, CNN, and Kamala’s Atlanta Rally (posted 8/2/24)

After my Wednesday column on good news stories, I’m afraid that today’s theme has to be “things that are wrong with the world.”

First up, the Olympics. 

The kind of international athletic competition that goes on in the Olympics is a fine idea, as are competitive sports in general.  And the Olympics have given us Hitler being humiliated when Jesse Owens won in 1936, and the US hockey team whipping the Soviets in the Miracle on Ice in 1980.  And don’t forget the anti-Semitic Muslim jerk who beat an Israeli in judo last weekend, then refused to shake hands and gave him the “finger of Tawheed,” only to get his arm dislocated in a humiliating loss to his next opponent. 

I look forward to that bigot watching the next Olympics on tv, as he sells hummus in an Allahu Snackbar food cart in Tajikistan.     

But these Olympics continue to disappoint.  Everybody knows by now about the drag queens and their mocking of DaVinci’s portrayal of the Last Supper.  Leave it to a bunch of far-left Christophobes who think of themselves as avant-garde heroes to come up with something as tired and dumb as this lame attempt at blasphemy.

These people are the reason why the French came up with the word “douche.”

We also know about the foolishness of trying to have swimming events in the Seine river, which is turns out is as clean as a rapper’s lyrics, and as toxic as a racist Joy Reid monologue. 

But the nadir of this Olympics so far is the authorities allowing a male to box against women.  Though there’s apparently some controversy over whether Algerian boxer Imane Khelif is really a man, he “failed a gender test” and was banned from an international boxing tournament in 2023, and reportedly has a Y chromosome.

So as Austin Powers might put it, “He’s a MAN, baby!”   

He pummeled his actual female opponent, breaking her nose and forcing her to give up her Olympic dream by quitting after 46 seconds, before she suffered any life-altering injuries.

Unexpectedly! 

If there are any women on the committee who decided to let males box against females, they should be forced to fist fight a random male their size.  And then pay for their own nose jobs.  And any men on the committee should be forced to fist fight a random male about three weight classes bigger than them.  After which Khelif should be forced to fight in the same weight class against a male Olympian.

Then he can share an ambulance with the one-armed Jew-hating judo star from Tajikistan.

Next up, this week’s much-deserved killing of Hamas bigshot Ismail Haniyeh was great news, and the method the Israelis used to pull it off is even better: they planted some kind of explosive in the apartment where he was staying several months ago, and then detonated it remotely.  Which sounds like the work of one bad-ass Hebrew secret agent.  (“The name is Bond.  Schlomo Bond.”)

I love the idea that every terrorist in Tehran, Beirut and Gaza is now completely paranoid, slowly and tentatively opening every drawer, sitting down on every couch, and lifting every toilet lid, with a wincing expression and a racing heartbeat, wondering if the Mossad has left a surprise for them in whatever “safe” house they’re in.

But from the “We Don’t Hate the Media Enough” file comes more evidence of why we can’t have nice things.  Because an authentic CNN report, which I swear I am not making up, by real-life CNN reporter Nic (“rhymes with…”) Robertson actually said that the killing of Ismail “means that his moderate voice is off the table.” 

Moderate voice! 

He was one of the leaders of terrorist Hamas.  There is video showing him celebrating the news of the October 7th massacres of Jewish civilians, and he was such a psychopath that in video of the moment when he was told that his three sons and four grandkids were killed in an airstrike, he responded with complete indifference.

THAT guy is a “moderate,” CNN?

Well, at least CNN got one thing right.  That moderate is off the table. 

But on the walls, and the ceiling, and on the floor, and smeared down the hallway…

However, the one event this week that most clearly demonstrated everything that is wrong in the world was Que Mala’s disgusting “rally” in Atlanta. 

Of course the political speech she gave was 99% dishonest – the 1% true part was when she said she wants abortion right up until the 23rd trimester, when the “threat to women’s health care” gets on the bus for the first day of kindergarten. 

But that wasn’t the worst part.  Which is saying something.

As many observers noticed, Kamala went full Cankles McPantsuit on Atlantans, falling into a Southern accent so over-the-top fake that it would make Foghorn Leghorn blush.  (“Hello Atlanta!  Ah say, ah say, hello out dere!  Greetin’s and salutations, boy!”) 

And the Hillary comparisons fell upon the crowd like gentle, acid rain. 

But that wasn’t the worst part either. Which is REALLY saying something.

Because her “warm up the crowd” opening act was “Megan thee Stallion.” (Rumors that she got her rap name from the fact that her hindquarters look like something that should be carrying a fully-armored medieval knight into combat are unconfirmed. But the smart money does NOT say “naaaaay.”)

She performed a “song” called “Ode to Joy,” accompanied by some background twerkers.  The lyrics were oddly truncated, with her chanting a line, then staying silent for a few seconds, before chanting out the next line. 

Oh wait.  When I researched the song, I found that it wasn’t actually titled “Ode to Joy.”  It’s called “Body,” and it may have been chosen because that is one of the few titles of her “songs” that can be printed without many asterisks.  (Sample lyrics: “Body ody ody ody ody ody ody ody ody ody ody ody ody ody ody.” Then repeat.  Then “mwah!”  And that was the best part!)

Because I constantly sacrifice for CO nation, I looked up the video for that “song” and watched it.  And I can’t stress this enough: don’t do that yourself!  I took one for the team by doing so, and I swear that I am now a slightly less hilarious genius than beforehand, because that thing is an IQ-point-shaving-off train wreck.

Fun fact I learned, though: You may have thought that nobody can use the “n” word in public anymore without receiving harsh condemnation, but you don’t know how wrong you are.  Because if the person machine-gunning through a filthy, racist screed is a dysfunctional personality who can set it to a thundering bass line, it is a ticket to becoming a multi-millionaire, feted by the low-IQ left who pretend to dislike racism.    

But I did confirm what I expected: all of the silent spots in her “performance” were deletions of lyrics too filthy for a public event of any type, let alone a political rally for a major party candidate who wants to lead our m****r ****ing nation, y’all!

Ugh!  You see what I’ve done?  I think I might have sustained some serious frontal-lobe damage, just from watching that video.  Pardon me as I stop writing this column to spend four straight hours listening to Mozart, Bach and Johnny Cash, in a desperate attempt to re-establish some neural connections before the impact becomes irreversible.

Okay, I’m back.  I’m still a little woozy, as if I ain’t seen the sunshine since I don’t know when.  But I feel a little better.  Except that I can’t unsee that horrific Kamala Harris speech.  And that’s what tortures me.  

Seriously though.  There is something badly wrong with a quasi-black female candidate who would willingly appear after a “performance” by someone presenting such a vulgar, sexualized and racially offensive depiction of black women.  If the KKK (an organization born and run by Democrats who were angry that we’d whipped them and freed their slaves) tried to come up with a super-demeaning depiction of black people, they couldn’t do a better job of it than Megan Thee Stallion just did.

And it makes staying optimistic tougher when I think that young black people who could be reading Thomas Sowell, watching Denzel Washington, and looking up to Ayaan Hirsi Ali or Clarence Thomas are instead spending their money and time on a debased vulgarian whose primary appeal is having a derriere as large as the great outdoors.  Yikes.

Okay.  I can’t send you off into the weekend with that grim image.  So here’s a last little feel-good story about a purported Al Jazeera “Palestinian” “journalist who did an amazing Ismail Haniyeh impression on Wednesday.  That is to say he got hit by an IDF airstrike, and thus joined all of the other “moderate voices” who are now “off the table.”

CAIR and other terror-supporting organizations immediately began caterwauling about how the evil Jews are killing innocent journalists!  What could ever justify this kind of barbarity?!

Then… “three hours lay-tair” …evidence comes out that, just like many “journalists” before him, this guy was a long-time Hamas propagandist and terror participant.  He reportedly participated in the October 7th  attacks, and continually produced “journalism” comparing Israel to a disease.  On 10/7 he was so excited that he posted “our children will play with their heads.”   

What a sweetheart. 

My favorite part of this story – other than him being “off the table” – is his name.

 I don’t know his pronouns, but I know that his verbs are now “was” and “were,” and that his first name was “Ismail.”   And it was a tough week for Jew-haters named “Ismail” over there.

His last name – you can’t make this up – was “al-Ghoul.”

Perfect!

Have a good weekend everybody, and remember…

Hamas delenda est!

Feel-Good Stories: Bibi kills it, DEI Struggles, Israel Takes Out Some Bad Guys (posted 7/31/24)

Our politics lately is so full of knaves, grifters, pathological liars and fake Indians (#wemustneverstopmockingher) that following it can dent the optimism of even the best of us.  Mocking the bad guys takes some of the edge off of that for me, but it also helps to focus on the many positive stories that are happening all the time, too.

Here are a few of those stories from the last couple of weeks:

Bibi Netanyahu’s speech to our congress last week was moving and inspiring, and perfectly emblematic of the courage of a people who gave us the story of David and Goliath.  After the atrocities of October 7th, the Israelis have made great sacrifices to minimize their enemies’ civilian deaths as they wage a war every bit as righteous as our fight against the Nazis and Japanese in WWII. 

And for that they’ve been slandered and lectured by leftists — in the press, in the UN, and in much of the West generally.  They’ve endured condemnation for responding “disproportionately,” and have been told that they must unilaterally cease fire, leaving their hostages in slavery and Hamas terrorists in control in Gaza. 

And then when Netanyahu comes to address the congress of his great ally, the president and VP and around 50 Democrats shun him and boycott his speech.  And the one anti-Semite who does show up is Rashida Tlaib, sufferer of the worst case of “resting jihadi face” in the world!  And the slogans on the stupid little ping pong paddle sign she was holding up were as tough to look at as she is.

And still Bibi was able to give that speech.  If you didn’t watch it yet, you should.  He pointed out and honored some of the battle-scarred Israeli heroes, and the young woman hostage who was rescued by the IDF and reunited with her dying mother, who feared that she would never see her again. 

The kind of moral clarity he displayed is bracing, and its virtue even more impressive when contrasted with the shameful reactions of many of our pitiful elected Democrats.  I love knowing that when a nation is threatened by evil enemies, there are still brave citizens around who will rally to their country’s defense.   

In other good news, we appear to be winning many battles in the culture war. 

Just a few short years ago, the defund the police movement was sweeping across our nation, and DEI propaganda was a dominant force in academia and in most of the corporate world.  But now the “defund the police” mobs have been routed nearly everywhere, including even in deep-blue states and cities, and you can’t find a nationally important Democrat who supports that disproven and delusional cause.   

DEI is just as clearly in retreat, too.  Universities in several states – Florida, of course, and most recently Alabama, among many others – have gotten rid of their DEI emphasis and are dismantling their DEI departments and terminating or reassigning their DEI employees.  In the leftist enclaves of the universities, this is a nearly miraculous development!

Within just the last month, giant corporations including Tractor Supply, John Deere and Microsoft have also all explicitly renounced DEI.  The latter used some sweet corporate-speak to announce the falling axe, with euphemistic phrases such as “[DEI programs] are no longer business critical or smart as they were in 2020.” 

In a perfect world, they would admit that such policies were NEVER smart, and they sure as hell were never “business critical!”  But a win is still a win.

Tractor Supply and John Deere were even more blunt, admitting that they’d screwed up their priorities and insulted their customers, then apologized, and then laid out the specific steps they were taking to completely eliminate DEI from their operations.

The fact that companies like that – whose products are bought disproportionately by straight males with a Liz Warren-esque complexion – had been putting their employees through idiotic diversity training and racial struggle sessions in the first place shows how far the DEI rot had spread!

I was raised in Midwestern farm country, and I never heard a farmer, grain elevator worker, or farm equipment salesman involved in a heated discussion of pronouns.  No fights in a detassling crew ever included the words, “You’re gonna acknowledge your privilege right now, or I’m gonna whip your arse!”   

In fact, no detassler on his first day of work ever challenged a farmer by saying, “You’re telling me to pull the tassles out of the plant because that’s the male part.  But what if that corn stalk doesn’t identify as male?  Won’t misgendering the crops make the harvest inedible?”

Even prominent Democrat pols now implicitly acknowledge the danger that DEI poses to their plans, by trying to defend the concept while simultaneously denying that it has influenced any of their candidates. 

When MSM talking heads howl that it is horribly racist to say that DEI is responsible for Ketanji Jackson being on SCOTUS or Que Mala being their candidate – even though Biden openly said he was making a DEI pick in both cases, by choosing only from among black females for those positions – they give the game away. 

Being called a DEI hire is now clearly recognized as an insult, and that’s a good sign for our culture.

Finally, to prove the main point of this column, as I was finishing it I was interrupted by the news that Israel has just given a big ol’ “ballistic Shalom” to top Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr. 

(Have you noticed how the names of these terrorists often sound like insults?  “You’re nothing but a damn Shukr!  Why don’t you go fuad yourself?”)

On Saturday, Shukr masterminded the Hezbollah missile strike on a soccer field in Israel, killing 12 Druze children.  And I’m sure that made him feel like a bad-arse jihadi warrior, bravely taking on those soccer-playing kids from the safety of his home in Beirut.

Annnnnndddddd cue the transition card and the French-accented voice-over from Sponge Bob:  “Three days lay-ter…”

…an Israeli drone flew over Shukr’s shack and fired three missiles that collapsed the building on his evil head, before shooting some video of the chaos and then flying away, pumping out a couple of jaunty verses of “Hava Nagila” as it departed.

(Yes, I love the scene in Apocalypse Now where Duvall leads the helicopter attack while they’re playing “Ride of the Valkyries” to frighten the Viet Cong.  And I love the idea of Israeli fighter jets or drones screaming in low over terrorist bases while blasting a shofar.)

And THEN, as I was putting a few final touches on this column – “ballistic shalom” doesn’t just pop into your head on a first draft, people – I was preparing to post this at around 3:30 a.m.  Because I never stop working for CO nation. 

Does that mean you should hit my tip jar at Martinsimpsonwriting.com? 

Probably.

Where was I? 

Oh yeah.  Just before I posted, I took a quick look through the headlines and saw “Israel Takes Out Top Terrorist in Air Strike in Iran.” 

I started to move on, until I remembered that Fuad achieved room temperature in Beirut.  What’s this about Iran?

So I read the article, and lo and behold, the Israelis got a two-fer within 12 hours, taking out an even bigger terrorist piece of merde, Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh not long after he arrived in Tehran.  There is no info yet on how they killed him, but I bet the details are hilarious.

It’s been a tough stretch for terrorist scumbags lately.  Most of Hamas’ fighters are either dead or cowering in tunnels and pooping in buckets.  Then Iran’s leader decides to take a ride in the mountains on a rickety helicopter and turns into hummus on a hillside.  Then the Iranians pick a new top weird beard, and Ismail comes to town for the big celebration, and…

Like I said, there are a lot of great things going on, if you just look for them.

Defund the police is dead, DEI is dying, Fuad is flattened and Ismail got Is-nailed.        

Say it with me, CO nation…

Hamas delenda est!

The MSM Tries to Cover for Kamala, Schumer Beclowns Himself, & Karma Gets An Anti-Semitic Olympian (posted 7/29/24)

Once again trying to keep up with the news last week was like trying to drink from a firehose. 

I know what you’re thinking: “If we didn’t know what a refined gentleman Martin is, that sounds like a setup for a hilarious Willie Brown joke.”  And maybe it is.  But as you know, that kind of thing is beneath me.  So let’s not act like children, people.

By the way, I just re-watched the two-minute clip from the debate when Trump and Biden talked about golf.  And for the rest of my life, whenever I’m feeling a little down, I will watch that clip and feel the healing balm of laughter.    

Trump’s advisors had obviously coached him up to not over-reacting or show too much irritation, and he did a pretty good job of maintaining a poker face throughout.  But the one thing that put him over the edge was hearing Biden say that he was a 6 handicap.

Trump’s expression – groaning and turning his head away – was comedy gold, followed immediately by Biden changing his handicap to an 8, while Trump shook his head and sarcastically said, “Yeah.  Never.” 

Then Trump gave the coup de grace: “I’ve seen your swing, Joe.  Let’s not act like children.”

I’ve used that line half a dozen times in the last month, including in a friendly argument with my wife.  She was reminding me that I’d promised to give Cassie the Wonder Dog a bath, and that she was not smelling so great.  Technically, she was right, but I could see that Cassie was offended.

So I said, “Honey, I’ve seen your swing.  Let’s not act like children.”  And it worked perfectly.  Karen was completely confused, and I laughed and put out my fist, and Cassie gave me a paw bump and trotted out of the room at my side. 

That’s the closest I’ve come in 35 years to winning a marital argument.  So thank you, President Trump.

Anyway, the Obamas endorsed Kamala on Friday, so now the die has been cast, the Rubicon has been crossed, and the pooch has been screwed.  

I don’t think that even the Democrat party could flip-flop again if her numbers go south, and try to switch in a new candidate at the convention.  So we can all now officially train our fire on Que Mala.  (By which I mean, we can all now tell the truth about her.)

We still need to stay focused, because she starts with an enormous propaganda machine and a mountain of cash in her corner, and the MSM will lie to sell her as outrageously as they lied to sell Biden.  But between her own awkward incompetence and being saddled with Biden’s terrible record, she is clearly beatable. 

In the meantime, her “honeymoon” is providing some dark humor, as we watch the MSM beclown themselves with one blatant lie after another: 

“She wasn’t a DEI pick!” (Even though Biden himself said that she was.)

“She wasn’t the border czar!”  (Even though we can post dozens of MSM headlines saying she was, and we can watch the séance with Joe Biden when he gave her the responsibility for the border.) 

“She’s an exciting, dynamic leader, who has earned her way to the top!”  (<cough> Willie Brown <cough>)

The best and cringiest moment came from poor Chuck Schumer – a hollowed-out husk of a man at this point, though I’m not sure that he was ever much more than that – rolling out her announcement.

In a performance worthy of a “Worst Actor in a Political Farce” nomination, Schumer mimicked enthusiasm, while reading a groan-worthy and unconvincing script, which I swear I am not making up:

“President Biden’s selfless decision has given the Democratic Party the opportunity to unite behind a new nominee.  (Here he began pumping his fists very unconvincingly.) And boy oh boy, are we enthusiastic!” 

Yes.  Biden’s “selfless” “decision.”  You know, like when the Godfather had Luca Brasi hold a gun to that band leader’s head and told him that either his brains or his signature would be on the contract. 

And the bandleader said, “I have selflessly decided to sign this contract.”

Also, nobody in all of human history who was actually enthusiastic has ever had to say, “Boy oh boy, are we enthusiastic!”

Then Schumer said, “So now that the process has played out from the grassroots bottom up…”

Yes.  Because nothing says “grassroots, bottom-up campaign” like a political puppet having a series of closed-door meetings with party bosses and big donors over 36 hours and then emerging as “the people’s choice!”  

“…we are here today to throw our support being Vice President KAMALA HARRIS!” 

And then he actually clapped.  All by himself.  In a room presumably full of Dem party hacks and journalists.  (But I repeat myself.)

After an excruciating several seconds of sad, one-man applause, Schumer dropped his hands and acknowledged the toxic-level of cringe, saying, “I’m clapping.  You don’t have to.”  When the crowd laughed at Schumer’s awkwardness, he finally said, “It’s a happy day.  What can I say?”

How about, “Please accept my deepest apologies for the mortifyingly dishonest kabuki theater I’ve just engaged in.  I’ve shamed myself, my party, and my family.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I will retire from public life forever.” 

But nope.  He just stood there in a room full of spineless sycophants, who couldn’t even bring themselves to sycophant. 

I wish I could have been there, because you know what I would have called out. “We’ve seen your candidate, Chuck.  Let’s not act like children!”

But Schumer had still not hit rock bottom, because two minutes later, before turning the microphone over to Hakeem Jeffries, he made one more attempt to use some flailing arm gestures and faux-rousing rhetoric to elicit some reaction from a captive audience who appeared to be as dead as Joe Biden:

“Today…we begin our next chapter, and it will be our best yet!  Vice President Harris will beat Donald Trump, and [awkward fist pumping with each emphatic word] Become. The. Next. President. Of. The. United. States. Of. America!”

Then he actually looking pleadingly toward the first row, waving his hand back and forth, and plaintively saying, “Applause?”  When not a single person responded, he quickly said, “Hakeem,” and stepped aside, looking like the picture you’d see in a dictionary beside the words, “flop sweat.”   

Ouch!  Tough room, Chuck!

If this bunch of lackeys and sell-outs can’t even be tased into some fake applause, the next four months are going to be entertaining.

There are a lot of good-news stories that I wanted to talk about, but this column is already getting a little long, so I’ll save those for a Wednesday column, and choose just one schadenfreude-tastic story to end with.

This one happened at the Olympics, where a Muslim athlete from Tajikistan named Emomali was matched against an Israeli in a judo competition.  And you’ll never believe it, but the Muslim was a big a-hole to the Jewish guy.

Unexpectedly!

Emomali won the match, and afterward he snubbed the protocol of shaking the Israeli’s hand. Instead, he stalked off, saying, “Allahu Akbar” and giving the Islamic “finger of Tawheed” gesture, which is making a fist with only the index finger raised, symbolizing the Islamic belief that, “There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet.” 

And then, because God exists, and He is hilarious, Emomali next faced a Japanese guy, who picked him up and slammed him backwards onto the mat.  When Emomali reached his left arm out to try to break his fall, it bent in a direction it wasn’t supposed to, leaving it dislocated, and Emomali crying in pain on the mat.

I couldn’t help but think of Shane Gillis’ hilarious impression of Trump’s news conference announcing the death of Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi: “We could hear him crying.  I said, Abu, don’t cry.  ‘Crybaby Baghdadi,’ that’s what we were all calling him.”

Meanwhile, Emomali’s defeated Israeli opponent advanced to the next round, because the Algerian Muslim who had been scheduled to fight him forfeited the match, rather than compete against a Jew.  (Unexpectedly.)     

If I could go back in time and see only one Olympic event, it would have to be Emomali doing his impression of a backward-bending chicken leg on the mat. 

Oh no, wait.  I’d go to the 1976 Olympics, and find Bruce Jenner, and say, “Bruce, I’m from the future, and I’ve got to warn you about a terrible, terrible decision you’re going to make in about 40 years!”

But if I could go back in time and see two Olympics, my second choice would be to pop back to this weekend to see Emomali going, “Allahu Ak-OW! OW! OW!”

And as he was being taken off on a stretcher, I’d show him the “Finger of Simpson,” which is very similar to the “Finger of Tawheed.”

Except that it does not involve the index finger.

Then I’d say…

Hamas delenda est!

For One Shining Moment, the Press Does their Job… and a Dem Prez Instantly Falls (posted 7/26/24)

Well, tomorrow will be one month since the most decisive debate since Lincoln-Douglas. 

Before anyone accuses me of exaggeration – you might think that we all remember Lincoln as the guy who beat the Democrats and freed their slaves, while Douglas has faded from history – I have to point out that Douglas was able to complete a series of debates during which he spoke for many hours without worrying audiences that he had shuffled off this mortal coil.

Joe Biden STARTED the debate by shuffling into the room in a manner that suggested he may have left his mortal coil in the green room.  From there he didn’t just make some gaffes, or have some bad moments, or lose badly.

He was so metaphysically awful that after 90 minutes, the entire nation decided that he cannot run for president anymore.  That, my friends, is one terrible debate performance.

We’ve learned many things in the last, tumultuous month: A cognitively disabled man can be president for three and a half years.  A gentle, 3-degree slope on a roof makes it impossible for a secret service agent to get onto it.   No matter what you may have heard, Que Mala was NOT the Border Czar.  (I guess because technically she was the “Border Czarina?” Gendered Russian grammar for the win!)

But for me, the most eye-opening experience was getting just a brief glimpse of what our political landscape would look like if the press actually did their job on a regular basis.  Because holy moly, did they ever destroy Joey Gaffes in record time! 

And they didn’t do it via dirty tricks or biased coverage.  They simply started telling the truth and asking tough but fair questions.  For a couple of weeks!  And Biden’s 120-year career in politics was over, just like that.

Can you imagine if the MSM had done that to Bill Clinton?  “We’ve noticed that despite the fact that you’re a huge feminist hero, every intern who walks out of your office either has mussed up hair, messed up lipstick, or is rubbing her rear end.  What’s up with that?  Also, you clearly perjured yourself under oath, and since losing your law license over that means that you’ve been declared too unethical to be a lawyer – who knew there was such a thing? – how are you ethical enough to be a president?”

Or Hillary Clinton?  “We’re going to doggedly stay on your Rose Law Firm scandal and your impossibly successful cattle trading returns until we get to the bottom of them.  (We’ve noticed that your only even tangential connection to cattle is that you both have cloven hooves.) Also, your setting up a secret server and calling a meeting at which you ordered your minions to smash all of their Blackberries with hammers only makes sense as evidence of your staggering corruption and devotion to evading responsibility for blatantly illegal actions, and we’re going to expose those completely.”

Or Barack Obama?  “How could you listen to Jeremiah Wright’s whitey-hating, anti-American sermons for 20 years – and take the title of your first autobiography (which you definitely did not write yourself) from one of those racist screeds – and not notice what a malevolent loon he obviously is?  Also, wasn’t setting up a fake Greek Temple in Denver to give a speech from, and then claiming that your getting the nomination was ‘the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow, and our planet began to heal’ super narcissistic?”

“And by the way, you never met your African dad until adulthood, and were raised by your white mom and white grandparents in Kansas, Indonesia and Hawaii, surrounded by white people, Hawaiians and Indonesians.  Doesn’t that make you about as culturally black as Liz Warren is ethnically red?”  (#wemustneverstopmockingher)

Years ago I remember reading a pollster’s estimate that one-sided leftist bias in MSM campaign coverage produces an approximate 8-to-10-point swing favoring Democratic presidential candidates, and that’s always seemed about right.  But the last month has proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Remember: with the MSM covering for Joe Biden, he had 36 years in the US Senate, 8 years as Vice President, and one term as President.  But when the media turned on him and started reporting honestly, he was forced out of politics in a fortnight!

Which brings us to Biden’s unsatisfying speech on Wednesday night.

Not counting the aforementioned sudden bout of media honesty, there were only three, obviously true reasons why Biden stepped down.   And spoiler alert: Biden and all national Dems are allergic to obvious truths (see: men can’t be women; Hunter’s laptop was Hunter’s laptop; the border is not secure, etc.). 

So guess who avoided those true reasons like a Jewish vegan avoiding a pork chop wrapped in bacon?

The first two true reasons are: 1. Joe’s been cognitively and physically deteriorating at a frightening rate, and 2. Polls show that he was going to lose badly to Trump. 

We all know that the Democrat elite didn’t give a damn about the first one, because they’ve known about it for years.  They ran Joe in 2020 primarily by keeping him in his basement, for crying out loud.  And everyone who had never been within ten miles of Biden still knew that he was cognitively challenged – comedians were doing accurate impressions of his shuffling and mumbling, and there were ubiquitous internet “greatest gaffes” compilations of his addled and awkward bumblings back in 2019.

Yet somehow Biden insiders – from his sapphic Kewpie-doll spokeswoman to his cabinet officials to his own family – claim that they had no idea of the infirmity that even primitive tribesmen living as remotely as the cannibals who ate ol’ Uncle Appetizer Biden knew about!  

So the Dem elite clearly knew about his manifest infirmities and unfitness to serve, and they just as clearly didn’t care.   But they definitely cared about the second factor – his likely defeat by Trump – because they are power-hungry, soulless Machiavellians who would sell their own mothers into Willie Brown’s harem to retain their power.

So Joe had a tough task in his Wednesday night “speech.”  He had to explain a momentous decision that had only three possible explanations – I can’t control my thoughts or my bowels; I was going to get my butt kicked by Orange Hitler; or my fellow Dems are a bunch of faithless snakes who went all “et tu, Brute?” on my wrinkly old arse – without actually admitting any of those obvious truths.

He did about as well as he could with that… which was not so much.

He basically gave a stump speech about what a great president he was, touting all of his made-up accomplishments (“I lowered drug prices! I beat Medicare! I took a shot of cancer to the moon!”), taking credit for the inevitable economic improvements after the artificially imposed covid recession, and ignoring everything he actually did.

So it’s no wonder that his speech made no sense.  His message boiled down to, “I’ve been such a tremendous, super-successful president… that the best thing I can do for my party and the country is to get out of the race.”

What better way was there for Joe Biden to go out?  After starting his long, incoherence-filled political career in 1973, he left on one final note of complete incoherence.

Well done, Joe.  Please accept this final poem, composed in your honor, from Dylan Thomas, me, and all of CO nation:

Do not go gentle into that political night,

Old age should slur and stutter at close of campaign;

Rage, rage, against Obama and Que Mala!

Hamas delenda est!

I Can’t Believe What the Dems Are Doing with Kamala (posted 7/24/24)

I’ve been lied to.  

Because I’ve been told that our tech overlords know everything about us, and that they’re spying on us through our cellphones, and maybe our fridges, and possibly our toasters. You can’t so much as mention that a certain Democrat pol has a ten-cent head and a juicy booty – her words, not mine (I mean, the juicy booty part.  I figured out that she’s got a ten-cent head all on my own, when she started to talk) – without your phone and computer being bombarded with pics of a Kardashian.

Or Emily Ratajkowski, whom I don’t even know.  (Well, I know NOW.)       

Anyway, those shadowy tech wizards are supposedly curating our entire lives, and feeding us only info that we already agree with or want to receive.

And yet I’ve already received two fund-raising ads in my feed just today, both of them from Que Mala Harris!  So I’ve definitely been lied to about our tech eavesdroppers’ ability to read our minds, because I’ve got to be the least likely person in this solar system to contribute to the campaign of Little Miss Cackle-nator.

However, it was fun to watch her ad, if only to imagine how many takes it took to finish it, and what her first take must have sounded like. 

“For only ten dollars, you can make a difference in getting me elected.  Just ten dollars.  Which is an amount of dollars. Ah-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha HA!  Right?  Each dollar can be exchanged for a dollar’s worth of goods or services.  Goods like electric school buses, and power points full of Venn diagrams.  Ah-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha HA!  And services like hiring a bunch of child actors to sit around and listen to my blathering about space and the moon, and act like I’m saying something substantive.

Anyway, your 10 dollars – a number that is not as big as Russia, or as small as Ukraine, and comes somewhere in between 9 and 11, which are also very numerical terms, right? (cackle cackle cackle) – can make a difference in November.  Which is the 11th month of the year, and one more month than the amount of dollars that I am asking you to send.”

I’m thinking that that’s the part of the first take when several of the tech crew loudly face-palmed themselves, one Dem pollster vomited on his shoes, another sat down mumbling, “We are beyond f**ked,” and the director yelled, “Cut!  Is Joe still around here somewhere?”

You might be asking, “Martin, I thought you asked us yesterday not to criticize or make fun of Que Mala until after the Dem convention, when she would presumably be locked in as the nominee?  And yet now here you are, eviscerating her in the hilariously genius-like way that we’ve all come to know and love.  What gives?”

Well, for some idiotic reason known only to God – you may remember Him as the Guy who moved Trump’s head out of the way of that bullet – the Dems seemed to have fallen in line behind Harris.  (And no, this is not the time for a Willie Brown joke.  In the words of a great future president, “Let’s not be children.”)

I really don’t get it.  The smart thing would have been for them to say a lot of supportive comments about Kamala (as honest as all the things they were saying about Biden being vigorous and super compos mentis 10 minutes ago), but leave the door open for a nomination battle at their convention. 

Then, after three weeks of Kamala assuming the role of president-in-waiting and making public appearances everywhere, they could see what her polls looked like.  And if the polls look like we all pretty much know they will, the Dem power brokers could rig the convention to put someone else in place.  

That’s what I thought they would do, when I noted 24 hours ago that some big leftist names were splitting into two camps re: whether Kamala should get the nod.

I guess they could still do that. But they are all signing off on her candidacy now, which will make them look much more bumbling and desperate if they reverse themselves again, after they crowned her as the nominee a day after Joe shuffled off his mortal coil, wearing his big ol’ waffle-stomper, shufflin’ shoes. 

Seriously.  They lied about what great shape Joe was in for four years, then he exposed them by breathing his last breath during the debate.  So then they jump on the Kamala bandwagon – and again I must remind you that I am far too dignified to make the Willie Brown joke that we’re all thinking of right now – and when her poll numbers look as bad as Joey Gaffes’, they’re going to push her aside and sub in ANOTHER Dem politician?!

Does that process – bailing from Plan A to Plan B and then to Plan C in a few weeks – suggest stability and competence on the left?  Or does it look like the live re-enactment of the old joke about four guys in a plane that’s going down because it’s overloaded?

(You may remember it from the pub scene in American Werewolf in London: When they realize that somebody needs to jump out to save the rest, the Brit says, “God save the Queen!” and jumps.  When the plane is still too heavy, the Frenchman says, “Vive la France!” and jumps.  When that doesn’t help, the Texan says, “Remember the Alamo!”… and chucks out the Mexican.)

But it looks like the Dems are going with her, so what do I know?  Still, just to be safe, if any of you are contacted by a pollster in the next three or four weeks, please say that you’re all-in for Harris, and you give her five stars, or two enthusiastic thumbs up, or multiple bedazzled Venn diagrams.  Whatever it takes.

By the way, it’s a huge red flag that her first official act – for the last time, I’m not talking about THAT “act” with Willie Brown, so get your minds out of the gutter – was deciding to snub Bibi Netanyahu.  That’s going to play well in Dearborn, with the ululating, “death to America” crowd, and with the Squad/jihadi caucus in the House, but elsewhere? 

Great job, Que Mala.    

Big Biden donor John Morgan might have said it best – by the way, hang your head in shame for giving that decrepit grifter money, John – when he claimed that, “Joe’s endorsement of Kamala is his f**k you to all who pushed him out. Be careful what you wish for.”  

If that’s true, I’ve got to say something that I never thought I would, seriously and without my tongue in my cheek: Great job, Joe! That’s a sweet move on your way out the door, because it gives all the lying hypocrites who stabbed you in the back a perfect dose of karmic justice. 

Don’t get me wrong, Joe: you’re all a bunch of political scorpions in an identity-politics bottle, and you all deserve each other, and the electoral disaster that I pray is about to descend upon your party.  Still, why should the rest of those rats be able to escape from the sinking ship they just tossed you off? 

But look at the bright side.  When Trump debates Que Mala and she opens up a whole word salad bar, you will be able to enjoy watching him re-use one of the lines that helped end your campaign: “I really don’t know what [she] said at the end of that sentence.  I don’t think [she] knows what [she] said either.”     

Hamas delenda est!

The Incredible Aftermath of Biden’s Stepping Down (posted 7/22/24)

Well, I certainly picked an event-filled week to go off the grid – or at least semi-off the grid – for a week’s trip up north to see my family.  I haven’t even gotten a chance to keep up on the CO site (!) though I dipped in from time to time.

I didn’t see any of the GOP convention live, although I saw a lot of clips and highlights, and I’ve had a chance to listen to a week’s worth of my top 4 political podcasts during my 17-hour drive home, so I think I’ve got a pretty good sense of the goings-on. 

Of course the latest bombshell is that Biden’s campaign is now officially as defunct as his neural synapses have been for, oh, call it at least 4 years now. 

We’ll all be dissecting the total upheaval in the campaign for a while, but I’ve got at least a few fragmented, end-of-a-long-drive thoughts from off the top of my head:

First, there are a lot more Joe Biden jokes I’ve half composed that will now go to waste.  I’d been looking forward to seeing how many variations of “settle it at the battle box” I could work into future columns.  (Early contenders were “butter box” and “bottle box,” but “bullet box” would have had to wait.  Because: too soon.) 

I did have one brainstorm that can still work, though.  You know how they put together those “In Memoriam” segments every year at the Oscars, honoring the Hollywood types who have died in the past year? 

I thought that I could create one of those for Biden, and get some tech wizard in CO nation to hack into the convention site in Chicago and play it on the big screen during the convention. 

Just a taste: a black screen appears as “Adagio for Strings” plays mournfully, then a black-and-white montage of Biden falling up mobile airport stairs and over sandbags and off of bicycles, and wandering around stages and shaking hands with ghosts goes on for a few minutes.  At the end the camera moves through a cemetery, finally coming to rest on a tombstone with “Joseph Robinette Biden, 1843-2024” carved on it.  Below that, the epitaph: “Never underestimate Joe’s ability to f**k things up,” Barack Obama    

It would have been funnier right before Joe made his “speech” accepting the nomination, but I think it can still work.

I know Joe is in for the ridiculously unearned hagiography treatment at the convention.  He’ll be hailed as a Washington-esque figure, praised for voluntarily giving up the campaign as a moving act of self-sacrifice on behalf of a grateful nation. 

Rather than the truth: he’s always been a small-time grifter who bumbled into the WH after a rigged primary and a hiding-in-the-basement rigged campaign in 2020, and was preparing to stumble in again, courtesy of MSM malfeasance and a scorched-earth lawfare campaign against Trump.  Until he forgot to take his special blend of Red Bull, amphetamines and lion testosterone extract before the debate, and accidentally revealed to us the centenarian behind the curtain.

And then the polls went south and the money spigot was closed, and suddenly all of his co-grifters were hustling him to the door and handing him his hat and a one-way ticket to Palookaville. 

Or at least Malarkey-ville.  

But before he goes, they’ll give him a send-off at the convention.  And how funny would it be if he was sitting there on the edge of falling asleep when my pirate “In Memoriam” presentation started playing all over the hall?

Good times.

Anyway… (as Joe might say)… we’re now facing a whole new election, and we need to keep pouring it on, and taking nothing for granted.  My modest proposal would be to spend the bulk of Elon’s $45 million per month on an army of lawyers and poll watchers in all of the battleground states – I’ve been reliably informed that that’s where they keep the battle boxes – to do everything possible to stop the steal this time.  

I’m really glad that Biden endorsed Que Mala (#neverunderestimateJoe’sability…), because that choice has got to have the smartest Dem pols pulling their hair out.  She’s the only person in this hemisphere with lower poll ratings than Joe, and I’m sure the power-brokers didn’t want to go through the humiliating process of lying for and then knifing Joey Gaffes in public, just to replace him with someone almost as likely to lose as he was!

And it warmed my heart to see the beginnings of a painful lefty-on-lefty civil war breaking out almost immediately. 

On one side are the pols and celebrities who immediately jumped on the Que Mala bandwagon: Slick Willy and the Pantsuit; super-villain Soros; Juicy Booty and the Squad (worst bar band ever!); Grandma Squanto Warren; Ken-Doll Newsom; plus professional pretendians including DeNiro, Middler, Ruffalo, etc. 

Even Jim Clyburn – who five minutes ago was “Ridin’ with Biden” is now all, “Scare us with Harris.”   

On the other side is the Obamas, Schumer, Jeffries, the NY Times Editorial Board, and Imhotep “Aiieee! The mummy lives!  Kill it with fire!” Pelosi.  And, presumably, all suitably Machiavellian Dems, who can’t believe their co-religionists actually want to replace the Mumbler with the Cackler.  (Worst Batman villains ever!)

Hopefully this will shape up as the political equivalent of the Iran-Iraq war, in which both sides are so awful that we can just hope for protracted fighting and lots of casualties all around. 

Can you remember a wilder campaign season ever?  One month ago Biden was cruising toward a coronation convention; we were wondering whether he would really show up for any debates; the only assassination attempts on Trump were aimed at his character, and none of us had ever heard of Butler, PA.  Trump didn’t have a running mate, SCOTUS hadn’t ruled on immunity or nuked Jack Smith’s appointment, and nobody knew that the head of the Secret Service was a DEI incompetent, or worse.   

And all of this has changed in what feels like the blink of an eye! 

I guess Que Mala was right. 

There really is a great significance to the passage of time!

Hamas delenda est!

Thoughts on the Aftermath of Trump’s Near-Assassination (posted 7/15/24)

The firehose of news since Saturday’s failed assassination attempt has been disorienting.  It’s hard for me to even remember how different the world and the political landscape looked only three weeks ago.  Biden’s debate collapse and the resulting firestorm of unprecedented chaos on the left completely upended what had already felt like a volatile, crucial, turning-point election.  

And then Trump comes with an inch of being murdered, and all hell breaks loose. 

As usual, the CO site has been a good place to come to sort it all out.  CO has offered insightful and wry posts, the COSE has said what many of us were thinking, and the reactions of CO nation have run the gamut, giving voice to all of the conflicting emotions that we’re all cycling through.

For me, the surreal feeling on Saturday was compounded because I am toward the end of reading the true story of another assassination attempt on another American president – one I should have known about, but didn’t.  

The First Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill George Washington, by Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch tells the story of a plot that unfolded in the late spring and summer of 1776, during the run-up to the British navy arriving in force in NYC for the first big battle of the Revolutionary War. 

NY Governor William Tryon and NYC mayor David Matthews were both enemies of Washington and the revolution, and they funded and led the plot.  (Just as today, NY and NYC have been plagued by terrible governors and mayors, apparently.)  The conspiracy was widespread, and involved many loyalist citizens, some Continental soldiers, and most shockingly, Washington’s own housekeeper and a small number of his own elite force of “life guards.”  (Basically, our new nation’s first iteration of what would one day become our secret service protection teams.)

Watching the story of an unfolding assassination attempt in real time, nearly 250 years later, was very strange.  Even with all of the obvious differences between our colonial beginnings and today, the sense of fate turning on the smallest of issues – a shooter inexplicably getting so close to a president, a fortuitus turn of a head – and disaster narrowly averted echoes from that tumultuous time to this.

Washington’s religious views could be semi-opaque at times, but he always spoke of Providence guiding him through the war years, and never so much as during the summer of 1776.  And it’s easy for me to see that same Providence at work this weekend.

I’ve still got a lot of negative emotions to work through.  After years of lies, demonization and Hitler/Trump comparisons, we don’t hate the media enough, for example.  I’m appalled by the hypocrisy of the left, as they turned on a dime from throwing everything but the kitchen sink at us, to lecturing us about our need to “lower the temperature.” 

But I’m going to do my best to focus on the many positive things to come out of this weekend, starting with the immense relief and actual joy that comes from surviving such a shockingly close call.   I’ve always loved Churchill’s quote to the effect that, “Nothing is more exhilarating than being shot at without result.”

But today I think he was only half right.  Because for Trump and for us, that quote must be revised: “Nothing is more exhilarating than being shot at and losing only the tip of your ear instead of your life!”

Even now, thinking of what might have happened, of how close we came to disaster, takes your breath away.  Today, I’m the biggest fan of Providence – or as I call it, “Pater, Filius, et Spiritus Sanctus”– of any roving correspondents you know.

But for me, it’s not just a deep and abiding gratitude that is warming my heart.  Because as another philosopher (first name: Conan) once noted, some of the finer things in life are also, “To crush your enemies. See them driven before you. And to hear the lamentations of their press-titutes.” (I have paraphrased, loosely.)

I’m not thinking of the good and decent Democrats in this country – and there are many out there, and we need to remember that.  Those people have to be grateful that Trump survived, even as they recognize the political boost his close call will give him.

But it’s not those decent Dems I’m thinking about.  It’s the creepy, hysterical, malevolent and Machiavellian Dems I’m thinking about.  And I am imagining with great schadenfreude their frustration and impotent fury today. 

Because really: they spied on him, they launched conspiracies against him, they rigged the 2020 election to get rid of him.  Then they saw him coming back, so they deployed transparently illegitimate and corrupt lawfare cases against him, and they even got 34 bogus convictions that will be overturned after the election is over.

And the more they smeared and fought dirty against him, the better his polls got.  Then their candidate reveals his own fragility and dementia – and their own shameful, years-long coverup of same – at the 11th hour, sending them scrambling to find a desperate, last-minute solution that involves stumbling through a political-landmine-filled landscape.

And then, on a sunny Saturday, they hear the breaking news: somebody has shot Trump!  And it sounds like it was a head shot!  Maybe their decades of devotion to Satan and all of his dark ministers throughout the hoary underworld (including Slick Willy, Anthony Weiner and Hunter, and their consorts in the whore-y overworld) are finally going to pay off, and their great Orange nemesis will be neutralized at last!

Annnnndddd… it turns out the bullet grazed his ear, and he popped right back up, gave the fist-pump heard around the world, and within 30 minutes the first of a million memes appeared to troll his leftist haters.  (My favorite so far: Trump’s mugshot superimposed over the words, “Missed me, b*tch!”)

Oh, the sweetness of it all.  Their most hated foe cheated fate by an inch, literally.  And in a way that makes the most perfect, campaign-bolstering photo op in human history! 

If the bullet had missed him, the commie conspiracy theorists would have denied that any bullets were fired, or at least that any of them had come within a mile of him.  He was never in any real danger, and he’s lying about the whole thing, which he probably staged!

But no. The bullet dramatically grazed his ear. Which, as Uncle Jesus would have it – sorry, I mean “as Providence would have it” — is filled with blood vessels, which can produce a lot of blood without threatening someone’s life the way a sliced femoral artery or jugular would.  But the blood can produce an amazing, visceral picture.

Did I mention that as the inevitable photos were being snapped, there was an American flag right behind him?! 

So you’ve got a white guy with light-colored hair, bleeding dramatic, scarlet blood, under a perfect blue sky, framed beneath Old Glory, rippling in the wind!   

How upset were the deranged goons at the New York Times at that image?  They digitally removed the flag from their photo.  I’m not making that up!  They photoshopped their own picture to make it less iconic.

Which is just an epic self-own, and a delicious echo of their shameful past as pro-Stalinist propagandists.  Just like Stalin used to crudely doctor pictures to “erase” comrades who had fallen out of favor, the NY Times is now doctoring photos to erase the American flag, which has never been too highly favored at the Times.

Especially when it looks great in a photo, and helps Trump. 

Note: I’m now on the road in TN to see mom and sis, and will be up in Illinois for several days to hang with the cousins, before heading back and spending some pre-birthday time with mom.  I probably won’t be writing a Friday column, unless I just can’t help it!

Hamas delenda est!

Diagnosing Biden’s Maladies by a Doctor, + an English Prof (posted 7/12/24)

What’s a roving correspondent to say after last night?  CO already said everything I was thinking, and by now you’ve read many other takes on Biden’s performance.  In times like these I wonder what I can contribute to the flood of talking points and counter-points that fill our media.

Sure, I can sometimes bring a little value-added humor to political analysis.  For example, a few columns ago I made a joke juxtaposing “mens rea” and “men’s room” that I’m confident you’ve never heard on MSNBC or Fox.  And where else are you going to see hundreds of references with fresh twists on the “Pelosi is a mummy,” “Liz Warren thinks she’s an Indian,” and “AOC is obsessed with the alleged juiciness of her own booty” tropes? 

Nowhere, is my guess.

But I also appreciate it when pundits bring some field-specific expertise to their public commentary.  In the case of Joe Biden’s obvious difficulties, for example, I want to hear from doctors.  (I’m not looking at you, “Dr.” Jill.  You’re not fooling anybody.)

Most physicians abide by what’s often called “the Goldwater rule,” which discourages them from diagnosing famous people whom they’ve never examined.  Fortunately for all of us, NBC found board-certified neurologist Dr. Tom Pitts.  And his motto is apparently, “Goldwater, Schmoldwater.” 

Because he gave an interview on Monday in which he was all over Biden’s condition like Michael Moore on a comically oversized turkey leg. 

Pitts said that the Cadaver in Chief has all the classic features of Parkinson’s: rigidity of posture, slow-movement kinesia, hypophonia (a small, monotone voice), etc.  When the poor NBC questioner tried to push back – he actually cited the phantom childhood stutter! – and posited that Parkinson’s could be difficult to diagnose, Pitt wasn’t having it. 

He insisted, “I could have diagnosed him from across the mall!”

Which reminds me: George Clooney – who is not only not a neurologist, he’s barely literate –diagnosed Biden too, saying that he “just wasn’t there” at the big fundraiser three weeks ago. 

Of course, that didn’t stop Clooney from helping to raise millions of dollars for Chauncey Robinette Gardiner.  And it didn’t prevent him from keeping his big stupid mouth shut about Biden’s impending collapse…until after it happened in front of everyone at the debate.

“Hey Martin,” you might be asking, “what’s with your vitriol directed at George Clooney?  You’re not still bitter because he edged you out for Sexiest Man of the Year that one time, are you?”

I won’t dignify that accusation with a response.

Anyway, I’m not a doctor like Tom Pitts.  And I’m not a former Sexiest Man of the Year, like hypocrite George Clooney or narcissist Idris Elba.  (And no, coming in a very close second to both of them in different years doesn’t make me feel any better.  If high school football taught me anything, it’s that second place is first loser.  Which is why after all of these years, not one member of the CO Nation has asked me, “Hey Martin, weren’t you the runner-up Sexiest Man of the Year several times?”)

(And no, don’t ask me now.  It’s too late!)       

Where was I?  Oh yeah.

I’m not a doctor, so I can’t bring you that kind of a specialist’s diagnosis.  But as an English professor I can provide a linguistic diagnosis.  Which I will now do, and you’re welcome in advance.

(And for all of you who had “fascinating grammar talk” on your Bingo card of topics to be covered on the CO site today, say it with Hans Landa: “That’s a bingo!”)

The following paragraph is a verbatim transcript of one of Biden’s answers during his George Stephanopoulos interview.  In it, he argues why he’s the right presidential choice for the Dems:

“And who’s going to be able to hold NATO together like me? Who’s going to be able to be in a position where I’m able to keep the Pacific Basin in a position where — which at least checkmating China now? Who’s going to — who’s going to do that? Who has that reach? Who has — who knows all these — we’re going to have — I guess a good way to judge me is you’re going to have now the NATO conference in the United States next week. Come listen. See what they say.”

This is me, shaking my head, and taking another slug of medicinal bourbon.  Now let’s take this mess apart:

“And who’s going to be able to hold NATO together like me?”  That might not be as effective a rhetorical question as he hoped – many people immediately think “Anyone else!” as an answer – but hey, that’s a grammatically complete sentence, so he’s off to a good start.

“Who’s going to be able to be in a position where I’m able to keep the Pacific Basin in a position where — which at least checkmating China now?”

Annnnddddd… then he falls off a grammatical table.  This isn’t a sentence. The repetition of “in a position” is odd, and the first instance is nonsensical, since nobody else could be in a position “where [Biden] is able to” do something.  And there is no noun subject for the verb “checkmating.”

“Who’s going to — who’s going to do that?”  The “that” is a textbook example of unclear pronoun reference.

“Who has that reach?” Since the previous sentence had an unclear reference, the point here is equally unclear.  Also, even though we don’t know what you mean here, we all sense that the answer to your repetition of “Who’s going to…” is always and forever the same: ANYBODY ELSE!

“Who has — who knows all these — we’re going to have — I guess a good way to judge me is you’re going to have now the NATO conference in the United States next week. Come listen. See what they say.”

Wow.  This one starts with three straight beginnings of what could be complete thoughts – they each have a subject and a predicate – but they are all interrupted, and thus are missing an essential thing.  “Who has… (something)?”  “Who knows all these… (other things)?” “We’re going to have… (yet other, still not designated things).”

And Biden can’t get away with saying his favorite phrase: “You know, you know the thing.”  Because to paraphrase Trump two weeks ago, “I don’t understand what things he was just referring to, and I don’t think he does either.”

Biden’s fourth abortive start in this sentence is (mercifully) the last: “I guess a good way to judge me is…” – your guess is as good as ours at this point – “…you’re going to have now the NATO conference in the US next week.”

D’oh!  Stating that there will be a conference next week does not complete the set-up promising a good method of judging you.  Also, “now” is the present, and “next week” is in the future.  So you can see how those are different.

He ends with two grammatically correct, imperative sentences: “Come listen.  See what they say.” Both of those sentences are right in Joe’s wheelhouse, syntactically speaking, because they are very short, which means fewer things to screw up.  They’ve even got understood subjects (You), which is one less thing to go wrong in both sentences.

Unfortunately, they’ve still got a pronoun – a “they” that will supposedly be saying something – but without a clear referent in sight.  (Not to mention the fact that over the last several years, Biden has many times responded to questions about his fitness to serve with the challenge, “Watch me.”  We have watched you, Joe.  That’s why your approval ratings are down there among kidney stones, testicular cancer and Que Mala.)

This grammar lesson has been brought to you by the letter “W.”

As in, “WTF??”

Now, by the power vested in me by the diploma-granting universities where I matriculated and from which I graduated, I offer my linguistic diagnosis of the man who produced the answer above: The patient is clearly non compos mentis, with marked syntactic dysregulation, frequent train-of-thought derailment, and severe grammatical nonsensicality. 

Also, “cuckoo fried chicken.”

My professional recommendations:  Retain him as the Democrats’ candidate for president for the next four months (because they deserve each other), while keeping him out of public sight and away from sharp objects, staircases, bicycles, sandbags, microphones and cameras.  Then, in January, transport him to a care facility with a large and well-trained staff who can keep him comfortable for the rest of his days.

Or possibly weeks. 

Months, tops.

Hamas delenda est!

A Brief Observation Before Biden’s NATO Speech and Press Conference on July 11th (posted 7/11/24)

For two weeks now it’s been hilarious to watch many of the top Dems squirming, and pretending that they want to wait until this weekend to see how Biden does with his press conference and talking to NATO, when all they’re really doing is waiting for enough new polling to come in and tell how much damage the debate did to the entire Democrat party.

The funniest performance has been put in by the creme de la crap of this bad bunch, everyone’s favorite mummified Californian, Imhotep Pelosi.  On Monday, Biden’s handlers put out the clearest and most unequivocal letter (and subsequent statements) ever: he’s not leaving the race, the conversation is over.

But Pelosi and company have both fingers in their ears, pretending that they didn’t hear that part about the conversation being over:

Biden: I’m definitely staying in the race.

Pelosi: I’ll support whatever the president decides to do.

Biden: Good, because I’ve decided.  I’m in it to win it.

Pelosi: We just need to be patient, and give the president time to make up his mind.

Biden: My mind is made up!  I’m in.  Conversation over!

Pelosi:  These kinds of conversations are the heart of democracy.  They are a chance for a president to really search his heart—

Biden: Not necessary.  My heart stopped beating in 2019.  But I’m still all-in!

Pelosi (pretending not to notice): …and after careful and studious deliberation, let everyone know what course he has chosen.

Biden:  I’ve deliberated.  I’ve studied. The part of my mind that is not gone is made up!  I am the nominee, and I’m going to move forward – in very small, very shaky steps, and with the empty-headed cackling wench somebody picked for me as a running mate – all the way to election day.  I am totally, utterly, 100% committed.  I’m staying in!

Pelosi: No rush.  Take your time.

And, scene.

Man-o-manischewitz, if our country wasn’t in danger with this doofus “in charge,” this would be the funniest Keystone cops routine ever. 

Hamas Delenda est!