I See Dumb People Everywhere, Including Judges and WH Officials (posted 4/8/24)

Once again I’ve got an embarrassment of riches in terms of stories about people who are too shameless or stupid – or both (a condition which I call “the Schumer gambit”) – to be embarrassed when they should be.  

Let’s start where we almost always could: in New York.  Where District Court Judge Nicholas Garaufis (yes, his name can form two anagrams that somehow feel appropriate: “causal hiring oafs” and “fracas liaison ugh.”) is a notorious leftist in robes. 

Among his more prominent rulings were throwing out a non-racist firefighter exam because too many blacks and Hispanics failed it, and finding that DACA – a policy unilaterally created by hulking tough guy Janet Napolitano and later declared illegal by federal courts – is fine and dandy.

When I saw a headline about Garaufis saying, “Judge says FDNY firefighters booing Letitia James reveals systemic problem,” I was momentarily taken aback.  Could it be?  Could even a jerk like the oaf hirer admit that Letitia James’ biased and unprofessional performance as DA – which is more than deserving of lusty booing, if not thrown vegetables and a vigorous application of both tar and feathers – is evidence of a systemic problem?

Alas, no.  The systemic problem that Garaufis sees is that the firefighters booed a horrible boss that deserved to be booed… because…wait for it… racism! Of course.

We are facing a really serious dilemma in this country: what are we to do when a pathetically incompetent, biased, mean-spirited jackass gets into a powerful position and behaves terribly… and happens to be black?

Are we not allowed to point out that Kim Foxx has been a disaster in Chicago, or that Fani Willis and Nathan Wade are the most self-destructive couple since Thelma and Louise went off that cliff in the convertible?   Or that former Harvard president Claudine Gay is a plagiarizing, anti-Semitic mediocrity.  Or that Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Reid are racist nut jobs?

I mean, we can openly say that all red-heads are mortified that Jen “circle back” Psaki is one of them, and that all women with allegedly juicy booties are embarrassed to be associated in any way with AOC, and that Indian tribes from coast to coast are proud that Liz Warren is NOT one of them (#wemustneverstopmockingher)? 

But we can’t point out that Ketanji Brown Jackson doesn’t know what either a woman or the first amendment is? 

C’mon, man!  That’s a bunch of malarkey.  Not a joke.  Anyway…

But what can we expect of corrupt and dimwitted DAs and judges, when the best and brightest around the White House come up with the ideas reported last week in a Breitbart story titled, “Dem Strategists Gripe WH Not Pushing Back on Biden Frailty Concerns.” 

The story – which I cannot stress enough that I am not making up – featured various Dem apparatchiks expressing ire that Biden’s handlers aren’t doing enough to “counter the narrative” that Biden is too frail to be president for four more years.

Um, guys?  He’s too frail to be president for the LAST four years!

Brad Bannon says that Biden’s minions should do “everything they can” to dispute what everyone with functioning eyes sees every day.  An unnamed weasel agrees.  “If you have a president who is being portrayed as old and frail, why wouldn’t you punch back and show him active?”

Is that a serious rhetorical question?  He’s not “being portrayed” as old and frail – he IS super old and frighteningly frail!  And there aren’t enough CGI effects in all of Hollywood to “show him active.” 

The anonymous dope went on, and again, I swear I am not making this quote up: “Don’t just show a hyped-up Biden during the SOTU.  Show how active he is every f—ing day of the week.”

He wasn’t “hyped up” during the SOTU; he was doped up, you moron.  And do you remember how he laid face-down on the stage after he fell over a sandbag, and before a secret service guy picked him up?  THAT IS how active he is every f—king day of the week!

But the article got even worse.  Bannon suggested that the campaign should show Biden “lifting weights” and “on the treadmill.”  (Did I mention that I am not making this up?)

The guy couldn’t lift a paper clip at this point, let alone a weight.   And seriously.  You think his people should film him walking on a treadmill, a device which is slightly inclined, and moving!

Have you seen him try to walk across a perfectly level lawn, which is lying there perfectly still?  They’ve got him wearing those ridiculous waffle-soled shoes that are as big as a tennis-racket-style snowshoe, and he still manages to look like a Wallenda trying to make it across a thin tightrope stretched over the yawning mouth of an active volcano! 

My favorite quote is from a fitness expert “who has studied fitness through a social justice context.”  (Good lord! I’m not even going to ask what that means.)  This genius finds it “curious” that Biden has not shared more about his “exercise regimen” and his “workout routine.”

Words fail me.  Anybody who has watched Biden for five minutes knows that the only cardio he gets is when they put those paddles on him and shock his heart into re-starting, three to five times each week. 

One professor they quote manages to almost, just barely, tangentially get a glimpse of reality.  “It does occur to me that… [the Biden team] must take care not to produce a Dukakis-like image that people will poke fun at.”

Really?  That thought occurred to you, did it? 

You mean an image like Biden taking one step onto a moving treadmill and immediately being fired backwards into a wall, whereupon he’d explode in a crackling of dry bones and dust, with a fluttering cloud of hairplugs settling slowly onto the dessicated remains of his beef-jerky-looking carcass?   

After that story, this next one – the latest in my well-received “Stupid Criminals” series, doesn’t really seem that stupid.  Which tells you a lot about the quality of both our presidential advisers and our criminals.  (And that’s a Venn diagram that has more than a little overlap.)

Anyway, Jonathan Gagen (31) – proud owner of two pending aggravated battery charges – went to a stranger’s home in southern Illinois and tried to break in.  The homeowner met Gagen at the door, showing the criminal his gun and making “numerous requests for Gagen to leave.”

But Gagen – rumors that he “has studied B&E through a social justice context” have not yet been confirmed – ignored commands not to enter.  Instead, he told the homeowner that he would “have to shoot me,” and then opened the storm door.

Whereupon the homeowner shot him.

Unexpectedly!

Medical help arrived in time to confirm that Gagen had shuffled off this mortal coil. 

Rumors that his last words were, “Ouch! In retrospect, telling that guy with the gun that he was gonna have to shoot me wasn’t a good decision.  But at least it wasn’t as stupid as saying that Biden’s staff should try to set up a photo op with him on a treadmill,” have not been confirmed.

Okay, I’ll have another mid-week column on Wednesday, because a whiny kid got expelled from Vandy in the most hilarious way possible, and that’s too good to not celebrate.

In the meantime…

Hamas delenda est!

Reasons to be Optimistic, + DeSantis Dunks on MSM Smear Attempts. Again. (posted 4/5/24)

Hey kids, let’s start today with a quiz.  Here’s a description of the social decay in a prominent big city: 

“This is no longer a capital, it is a cesspit.  No one works; the streets are filthy; there are piles of stinking rubbish in the courtyards. It hurts me to see how bad it has become. There is growing idleness and cowardice in the people and all of those base and criminal instincts…it seems are destroying [the country].”

Was that written about:

A. San Francisco

B. Chicago

C. New York City or

D. Washington D.C.

Many of you picked up on the reference to a capital, and might have chosen D.C.  Others may have noticed the slightly archaic language, and suspected a trick.

And despite the fact that I am usually the most reliable of narrators, the suspicious among you were right.  Even though the above quote could be aptly applied to any of our current sanctuary cesspits – er, cities – the passage was written by the Russian writer Maxim Gorky, in 1917.

He was describing St. Petersburg (then called Petrograd), not too long before Lenin’s Bolsheviks launched their murderous revolution.  In the previous months, attacks on the social order had been encouraged and carried out by the party’s foot soldiers, and the deterioration of everyday life was accelerating. 

It’s a sobering red flag (no pun intended) when you read a withering account of a doomed country’s downhill slide right before a historic tragedy and think, “Hey, I recognize that place!  Which one of our major cities is it?”

Fortunately for us, we’ve got a chance this November to avoid the damage that befell Russia.  The vocal, far-left fringe – then as now – represents a small minority, without as much widespread support as our egregious MSM would have us think. 

And as a cautious optimist, I see plenty of encouraging signs for the country, despite the Petrograd-esque decay in the Dem-run cities.   

For example, it was only a couple of years ago that a wave of “defund the police” measures were enacted all over the country.  Democrat pols at every level staked their reputations on removing cops, and trumpeted the dawning of a new day, in which economic justice would reign and cities would thrive. 

Annnnnddddd… Petrograd, 2024!  Crime skyrocketed, businesses closed, no one was working, and there were piles of stinking rubbish in every courtyard.

Unexpectedly!

Now those Democrats’ faces are as red as Liz Warren imagines hers to be (#wemustneverstopmockingher), and nearly all jurisdictions who cut cops are scrambling to reverse course. 

Similarly, the drive to decriminalize hard drugs has created growing pushback.  When a decriminalization law was passed in deep-blue Oregon and went into effect in 2021, supporters smugly pointed to parallels to getting rid of prohibition, and confidently predicted the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, man!

Annnnddddd… Meth Mania, 2021!

How disastrous was that plan?  It took America 13 years to reverse prohibition, but the results of this law were so horrific that even the imbecilic socialist dullards of Oregon managed to wise up and reverse it in only 3 years! 

I am not making that up.  A Democrat governor in Oregon – yes, she is female and gay (lucky guess on your part!) – signed a law criminalizing drugs last month. With the support of spineless Democrat Portland beta-mayor Ted Wheeler. And a headline the next day admitted, “Oregon Forced to Recriminalize Drugs After Disastrous Decriminalization Experiment.”

If I live to be as old as Joe Biden (RIP), I would never expect to read the sequence of words in my previous paragraph.  It’s a Transgender Day of Visibility miracle!

Even in areas where Dems are stubbornly persisting in their terrible policies, public resistance is building, increasing the chances of a Trump victory in November. 

The attempts to force Americans to buy EVs is looking more unrealistic and unpopular every day.  The open border is now a nationwide disaster that can’t be hidden, and national Dems are sweating like a meretrix in church.  The term “Bidenomics” became such a punchline that it has disappeared from the media. 

The ghoulish and outrageous mania to push transgender policies, including mutilating surgeries on kids and allowing dudes to beat the crap out of women in various sports, has gotten as ugly as “Admiral” “Rachel” Levine joining the gals of the View for a group photo.  Many states and some sporting organizations have passed rules recognizing biological reality, and the first of what should be a flood of lawsuits have been filed against doctors on behalf of kids whom they sexually mutilated or injured.       

And then there’s John Fetterman. 

Before his stroke, he was the worst mayor of the worst-run small town in PA.  During his campaign, he was less mentally agile than AOC, and less articulate than Joe Biden.  But as he’s recovered, he’s started saying sane, true things almost half the time.  Which gets him over the very low bar of “best Democrat senator in the country.”  

In fact, while I’m in a happy, post-Easter mood, let me send you into the weekend with a story that combines two of my column’s regular categories: “We Don’t Hate the Media Enough” and “Celebration of Excellence.”

The latest chapter of this story is happening in the polar opposite of 1917 Petrograd: Florida.

My state has its problems, as every place does.  Our summers are brutally hot and humid, recent hurricanes are playing havoc with insurance prices, and we’re facing the kinds of challenges caused by success (rising prices, more crowding).  

But we’ve got a great governor who has been under sustained attack by the MSM since the day he took office.  They smeared him over covid, they lost their Schiff when he sent illegals to Martha’s Vineyard, and they mocked him when it looked like Disney had put one over on him.

But then it turned out that he was right about covid, and right about illegals.  And then he beat Disney like Caitlin Clark beat LSU.  (That’s right, folks: my first and last ever reference to women’s basketball.  But that game last week was actually great.)

So last week NBC took another shot, in an article that explained why everybody who thinks Florida is succeeding is wrong.  In a state with 23 million people, they found a handful of gripers who fit their narrative, and let them gripe.  And after mentioning that “hundreds of thousands” of people have moved here, they ominously noted that 500,000 left in 2022.

Which doesn’t sound good, until you notice that in another paragraph they mention in passing that more than 700,000 people moved in in 2022.  And while I’m no mathmetologist, it seems like 700K is larger than 500K.

NBC was roundly mocked for that story – commenters noted that “NBC News apparently has no idea how net migration works,” and even lefty election analyst Nate Silver said, “Sorry, but Florida is popular. 

But then the Palm Beach Post told NBC to hold their beer, and ran a column with the headline, “DeSantis blames undocumented immigrants for health care costs.  His report costs taxpayers more.”

The story told about the “online dashboard” that DeSantis created to collect and publicize the data about how much illegals cost Florida taxpayers, then reported that while the state spent $566 million on uncompensated health care for illegals, DeSantis spent $577 million on the dashboard!

Ooh, they had him now!  It’s an outrage!  How the hell does anybody spend half a billion dollars on an online dashboard??

Except that when the story ran, it took about 30 seconds for hundreds of readers to fact check it.  And it turned out that the online dashboard had cost $5K to set up, and that the entire budget request for the data collection (which included another state agency as well) was $567,882. 

Not $577 million.  $567 thousand. 

Which is considerably less than the $566 MILLION that Florida has been stuck with because of Biden’s flood of illegals.

Of course, when the paper and the reporter discovered their error, they apologized profusely and ran a Page-1 correction of their laughable mistake.

HA! I kid. 

They actually “stealth edited” the column to remove the accusation, without acknowledging their mistake, or the change.  Which gave DeSantis the opportunity to spend a couple of minutes justifiably pummeling them for their unprofessional and dishonest behavior.

Man, I hope we someday have the chance to have that guy as our president!

Seriously though, I hope somebody from the Trump campaign has seen the story about Florida’s online dashboard, and is working on a national version.  Several columns ago, I called for something like that, only to find out now that it already exists.

I could see a national “dashboard” displaying updated and transparent totals of all of the costs of Biden’s illegally opened border.  One category could be “crime,” with breakdowns of the numbers of car accidents, thefts, assaults, rapes, murders, etc. 

Another could break down the enormous costs by type: medical costs, food assistance, housing assistance, education assistance, processing costs, costs to arrest, try and imprison, etc.

And then every time any Democrat complains about not having enough to spend on anything – infrastructure, social programs, increased pay for inert government workers, fresh burial wrappings for Imhotep Pelosi – we could call up the dashboard and say, “Well, if we hadn’t spent $65 billion on Biden’s illegals, maybe we could do some of that.  Oh wait, now it’s $66 billion.” 

If anybody knows any big shots in the GOP, please pass this along!

Hamas delenda est!

Men Attacking Women in NYC, Sanctions That Actually Work, & Billy Strings on Mushrooms (posted 4/3/24)

The latest crime story in NYC involves a spate of males (I can’t call them “men”) sucker punching women in “unprovoked, broad-daylight attacks.” At least 8 different women posted videos describing these attacks in just the week before Easter. 

Sorry, I meant “in just the week before the Holy Feast of Autogynephilic Weirdos.”

Many New Yorkers are rightly outraged by this.  The city council’s mostly leftist Women’s Caucus said they are “deeply disturbed and concerned,” and demanded that the NYPD do something about this. 

The council’s majority leader Amanda Farias asked, “Where are the men calling this out?”

Marine Daniel Penny – sitting at home with an ankle monitor on, awaiting trial in October for intervening to stop career violent criminal Jordan Neely from attacking innocent New Yorkers – saw Farias’ statement, and said, “Interesting. Good luck with that.”

Actually, I don’t know if he said that or not.  But I know what Sam Kinison would say, if Farias asked him why the stand-up men aren’t doing something to stop this: “Gee, I don’t know, Mandy.  Maybe because when they do step up and protect you from some thug, you try to PUT THEM IN PRISON FOR 15 YEARS!! OH! OHHHHHHH!!!” 

If you remember, in May of last year a bunch of NY Dems were outraged when Penny put Neely in a chokehold on the subway to stop him from menacing a car full of riders, only to get lambasted when Neely died. 

Mensa member AOC was “disgusted” when Penny wasn’t initially charged, saying, “Jordan Neely was murdered.  But b/c Jordan was houseless and crying for food… the murderer gets protected….”

For the record, Your Juicy Bootiness (your words, not mine), someone crying for food would say something like, “Please sir, may I have a few morsels of food?” whereas Neely was screaming – according to many witnesses on the subway – “I don’t care if I have to kill an F, I will!  I’ll go to jail, I’ll take a bullet!”

Do you see the subtle difference, Sandy from the block?  “Could I possibly trouble you for a sandwich?” vs. “I’ll murder all y’all mother frienders!!!”

But AOC wasn’t alone. Another influential female pol in NYC seconded Cortez’ indignation last May, posting, “I continue to be heartbroken and outraged by the death of Neely,” and went on to decry “the senseless violence” that cost him his life. 

That outraged gal was none other than…wait for it…Amanda Farias! 

Yep.  As a candidate she urged the city to “significantly divest from police precincts” and called for “the reduction of NYPD’s operating budget.”

And now, women all over NYC are getting assaulted by violent recidivists who remain on the street.

UNEXPECTEDLY!

Changing topics to foreign policy, I’m going to answer the following question that I’m pretending that one of you have asked: “Hey Martin, how effective are international sanctions, anyway?”

I’m glad you asked that, imaginary person who respects my sagacity on all matters international.  The answer is that it depends on the nature of the sanction. 

Take one timely example.  Mohammad Reza Zahedi has been a top commander in Iran’s Qud’s Force, and the man in charge of getting Iranian weapons and intelligence to Syria, and to the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah, so that they can kill more Jews.  As is their wont.

In 2010, Obama hit Zahedi with financial sanctions.  (This was two years before Obama warned Assad that if he used chemical weapons, he would be crossing a “red line” that would have “enormous consequences.”  And three years before Assad used chemical weapons… and learned that Obama’s idea of “enormous consequences” was “a strongly worded email of disapproval.”)

The result of Obama’s soul-crushing sanctions?  No change in Zahedi’s behavior.  He managed to struggle through the last 14 years, living a pampered life of power and prestige, with an endless procession of the most alluring goats in the entire Middle East brought to his chambers each night.  (I’m guessing about that last part, but I’m pretty sure I’m right.)

Until this Monday, when he was sanctioned by Israel in an Iranian consulate building in Damascus.  But the Israelis had apparently ran out of strongly worded emails, because they opted for a SDS (supersonically delivered sanction) in the form of a missile strike.

The result of that sanction?   Quite noticeable changes in Zahedi’s behavior, including but not limited to cessation of pulmonary, cardiac and brain function; sudden cellular disassembly; and creating a mess for the “Allahu Akbar Syrian Janitorial Services, LLC.” (Not to mention a sudden and complete loss of interest in even the most fetching of Iranian goats.)

Experts calculate that the chances that he will facilitate any more terrorist acts and Jew murders in the future to be well less than 4%. 

Happily, Zahedi’s deputy and 5 other top-ranking Iranian Revolutionary Guards terror chiefs were with him when Israel’s sanction whistled through the window, and they were all collaterally sanctioned as well.

Sources are calling this the largest loss to Iranian terrorists since Donald Trump ballistically sanctioned General Qasem Soleimani in 2020. 

(I’m assuming everyone remembers that one, but if not, you remember how in my last column I told you about how the violent thug who murdered NYPD cop Jonathan Diller had previously stuck a shiv up his own rectum?  Will this was kind of like that, only the “shiv” had a warhead on it.  And Soleimani didn’t insert it himself.)  

I’ll close with another of my “celebrations of excellence.”

Regular readers may remember that a year or two ago I wrote about the freakishly talented bluegrass/country guitar player and singer Billy Strings.  I had stumbled across a video of him when he looked to be about 15, playing a song he’d just written called, “Dust in a Baggie.” 

If you haven’t seen it, go find it now.  It’s the one recorded on a cell phone in a down-scale, paneled rec room like the ones in the houses I grew up in.  He mumbles around with his group of blue-collar (and stoner) friends for a minute… and then launches into a tornadic, three-minute virtuoso sprint through scorching, flat-picking guitar accompanied by pitch-perfect lyrics.

I find myself returning to that video every so often, and when I did again last night, I was reading some background info and found out something that made me appreciate his accomplishment even more: he was tripping on mushrooms during that performance!

Don’t get me wrong: don’t do drugs, kids. 

But to learn that he did THAT when he was on mushrooms?  It’s like finding out that Beethoven wrote Moonlight Sonata and six of his symphonies after he went deaf. 

It’s an amazing achievement either way, but holy moly!

If you haven’t seen it before, you’re in for a treat, and you’re welcome.

Hamas delenda est!

Biden Makes 2 Unforced Errors – an Ill-Timed Cash Grab, and Getting Trans-y on Easter (posted 4/1/24)

I hope you all had a good Easter weekend, or Paraphilia Day, or whatever.  I certainly hope that you had a better weekend than Joey Gaffes did, since his was marked by two major unforced errors. 

The first one – going to a glitzy fund raiser at the same time as the memorial service for murdered NY cop Jonathan Diller – wasn’t initially his fault.  The fundraiser had been previously scheduled, and it was bad timing. 

On the other hand, one might note that maybe if Biden’s party hadn’t been pushing the kind of soft-on-crime policies that enabled Diller’s murderers to be out on the street instead of doing life in prison in the first place, Diller would still be alive, and Joey’s cash grab could have taken place without such ugly visuals.

Regardless, once Biden realized that his fundraiser was going to coincide with Diller’s service, and that Trump was going to attend (and be welcomed at) that service, a reasonably competent politician would have at least tried to avoid the disastrous optics.  Maybe he could meet with Diller’s family privately to express condolences, or bump his fundraiser back a day?

If nothing else, he could have put out a press release saying that under these tragic circumstances, he wouldn’t be attending the fundraiser.  It still would have brought in the big bucks, for two reasons: 1. Anybody contributing to the late Joe Biden at this point is ineducable, and would donate anyway.  2. Nobody was there to see Biden.

I mean, other than people who had laid bets in Vegas in the ongoing “when is Biden going to die” prop bet, and had their money on “during a creepy fundraiser on March 29th.”  (For the record, I’ve already lost my $100, because my over/under on that one was “halfway through the SOTU.”)

(And by then, he’d already been dead for several years, so I don’t know what I was thinking.)

Biden’s second unforced error was deciding to declare Easter Sunday as the “Day of Trans Visibility.”  Man, that decision is all kinds of wrong!

As a Protestant, I used to tease my Catholic friends about how many saint’s days they had in their calendar.  (“You weren’t in school yesterday.  Don’t tell me: it was St. Horace’s Day, right?  Wasn’t he the patron saint of cobblers?  Or was it shoelace makers?”) 

But in general, Christians only have two big holidays, plus a few associated minor ones (Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, a handful of church services during Lent).  Altogether there are barely enough Christian holidays to fill up a week, and non-Christians are not expected to even notice – let alone approve of – more than the big two.

But LGBTQ zealots are going nuts, with something like 145 recognized “holidays,” not to mention three entire months devoted to pride, LGBT history and trans awareness. 

And if the weirdest oddball in your office interrupts a staff meeting to ask what kind of events the company is planning to hold to commemorate “Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week” (February 19-25th, so mark your calendars for next year), you can’t even do a spit-take with your coffee without being shunned as a bigot. 

An anonymous commenter summed it up best: “40% of the year to recognize 1% of the population?”

Which points out the political idiocy of Biden’s Easter debacle.  Yes, church attendance and the number of people who claim to be Christians has been on the decline.  (At the same time, society seems to be mysteriously decaying on just about every moral and ethical issue in sight.  UNEXPECTEDLY!)  But people who are at least nominally Christian still make up a majority of the country.

On the other side, a very tiny number of deranged activists have been revealing themselves as raving Christophobes in ways that repulse normal people, whether Christians or not.  Morons disrupt Easter services at St. Patrick’s in NYC, unfurling a banner and shouting nonsense.  A Cadbury chocolate store in England advertises “gesture eggs.”  (I’m not making that up.)

How does that political calculus work?  “Let’s go out of our way to intentionally offend tens of millions of Christians, and in a rude, obnoxious way that will offend tens of millions more who don’t like offensive jackasses, just as a general rule.  And by doing so, we’ll lock up the sought-after ‘blue-haired narcissistic malcontents’ vote!”

It really must be tough to be in a political party whose most zealous members are rabidly hostile to Judaism and Christianity.  The smart tack would be to just acknowledge Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, Christmas and Easter with a half-hearted, banal public statement (like the Biden WH did on Sunday), and then move on.

But the hard left can’t abide that. They’ve got to go out of their way to highlight their contempt.  Like when the White House has an E***er egg roll, but feels compelled to warn kids that there better not be any “religious symbols” or “overtly religious themes” on their East** eggs. 

Got it?  We can’t “ban” gay porn from our middle school libraries, but you should expect an assault team from the DOJ to fast-rope down to your front lawn and arrest your parents if they try to sneak some “religious overtones” into a holiday that exists to celebrate the resurrection of Christ!

Bah!

Bah, I say!

By the way, no one has asked me my thoughts about transgenderism, and I have no special expertise on that topic.  But the same could be said of every MSM talking head, national Democrat politician, and cast member on the View, and they’re always yammering on about it.  So why shouldn’t I?

Especially since I’ve got what many have called a crystal brain (hat tip to Adam Carolla), and an uncanny ability to be right about stuff.  So here goes:

I think that people who say they are trans fall into one of 4 groups:

1.People who truly have the mental illness of gender dysmorphia, which is similar to other conditions such as anorexia, in that in both cases, the sufferer believes the reality of his/her body to be different than it actually is.

2.Those – mostly adolescent females – caught up in a social contagion.

3.Men who have the sexual fetish of autogynophilia, which is being aroused by the thought of oneself as a female.

4.Creepy grifters who do so for personal gain: in the form of winning sporting events against women, getting prurient access to female bathrooms or showers, or getting into female prisons when they should be in male prisons, getting “misgendered” the old-fashioned way.

I really do feel empathy for those in the first two categories, and think our society should give them all the therapeutic and social support they need to get well, and successfully deal with their hardships. (But we obviously shouldn’t humor them, any more than you’d agree with some poor soul dying of anorexia, and tell her that she’s horribly fat!)

Those in category 3 should probably also get therapy – if they recognize their sickness and want to get well – or else swift opposition by police, and anyone else who learns of their predilection.

Those in category 4 need to be opposed, thwarted, shamed and punished.      

Okay, this column is getting long, so I’ll make this another three-column week, and post a shorter one on Wednesday. 

But I can’t leave without pointing out the evil criminal story that precipitated Biden’s first gaffe of the weekend.  Because the two scumbags who murdered Jonathan Diller are veritable poster boys for the national Dems’ horrific pro-criminal legal stance.

The shooter was career criminal Guy Rivera (with 21 prior arrests), and his sociopath driver was Lindy Jones (14 prior arrests), who was illegally carrying two guns in the car with him.  Diller’s partner managed to shoot Rivera, but he survived.  Tragically.

The Dems vigorously opposed “three strikes” laws for repeat offenders, but you’d think that by this late date, even they could tolerate a “10 strikes” law, which would have prevented at least this horrendous crime. 

For me, the creepiest detail in this whole, tragic story was that Rivera was found to have a shiv in his rectum when he was arrested.  Which could only mean two things: 1. He’s more sexually twisted than Hunter Biden.  Or 2. He knows how evil he is, and was thus planning to be sent back to prison at any minute, and wanted to go in armed.

That really gross fact has made me question my own – usually brilliant – plans to improve our country.  Because coming in at #12 on my personal List of Executive Orders which I would sign immediately after becoming president is, “The first part of the punishment for any cop killer – before ‘execution after a 30-day appeals process’ – is to have a shiv stuck up his rectum.” 

Now that I know that some of those freaks are already doing that to themselves – and (shudder) possibly enjoying it – I’ve got to amend my Executive Order List.

Thanks, Brandon!

Hamas delenda est!

A Little Schadenfreude, 3 “Unexpectedly” Stories, DeSantis Whips Disney Again, & Bragging on My Daughter (posted 3/29/24)

After introducing several different categories to write about in recent columns, today I’ve got one schadenfreude story, and three “Unexpectedly” stories. 

Today’s Schadenfreude Corner tale arises when two axiomatic lefty principles come into unresolvable conflict. 

I remember an example of this from a campus debate years ago: Many cultures (most of them in Africa and the Middle East) practice female genital mutilation (FGM), a bloody ritual of removing part of the female anatomy associated with sexual pleasure.  Feminists of all political stripes strongly object.

But multiculturalists – another trendy leftist constituency – reflexively see indigenous and non-Western cultures as superior to Western (Euro-centric, Judeo-Christian, free-market) culture.  (American Indians, for example, were environmentalist pacifists living in Eden, until evil white guys showed up and taught them how to fight and scalp, or something.)

So African and Middle Eastern cultures are morally superior to the West. Except when they violate women’s rights by practicing FGM…which is a part of their culture…which is morally unassailable…but evil, if it is misogynist.  But who are WE to impose our Western anti-FGM standards on the noble, indigenous…misogynists?

You could see blue hair and nose-rings being blown off of heads all over campus during that debate. 

(Conversely, conservatives had a much simpler take on that topic: “What are you, nuts? FGM is barbaric.  Stop it immediately.”  End of debate.)

Well, progressives in Chicago now have a similar dilemma. Because last month a “trans-woman” was standing on a street corner at 4:30 a.m. – as one does, in a super-safe city like Chicago – when a car pulled up.  An armed guy in the car said, “bad gay,” and fired three times, hitting the poor guy twice in the legs and once in the groin.

Sidebar: One way you know that being a trans-woman isn’t a thing is that getting shot in the groin hurts more and in very different way if you’re a “trans-woman” and not an actual woman.

“But Martin, Illinois has very strict laws that stop people from owning and carrying guns, so how could that guy possibly use a gun to shoot the confused dude?” none of you are asking, because you have an IQ much higher than AOC’s.  Bless her heart, and her juicy booty. (Her words, not mine.)

Anyway, the lefties in Chicago immediately sprang into action and began making signs condemning transphobia and preparing for mass protests.  Until some learned that the shooter had actually said, “bad gay” in Spanish.

Okay, they said.  Not great.  We were hoping for a white guy.  But Hispanics – sorry, Latinx-es – shouldn’t be transphobic either, so we can still condemn him—

Then it turns out that the shooter was a Venezuelan.  Here illegally.  With criminal ties to drug cartels. 

D’oh!  Three strikes! What to do?

Anyone who attacks a trans guy is evil…except if he’s a brown newcomer…or undocumented citizen?  Or is it now non-papered American?  Anyway, no human is illegal!  

Except maybe when he points at a guy in a dress and yells, “That’s a MAN, baby!” in Spanish, like a Guatemalan Austin Powers?

We feel your pain, Chicago Democrats.  If by “feel your pain” you mean “laugh at your self-inflicted stupidity.”

Now on to a trifecta of “Unexpectedly” stories.  (For newcomers to the column, these are tales in which leftist policies are put in place and produce predictably terrible consequences, to the shock of those who pushed those policies.)

First up is a story from the lefty rag The Guardian (UK), about a great labor “victory” in the leftist sanctuary city of Minneapolis.   Dissatisfied Uber and Lyft drivers there persuaded the city council to pass a minimum pay ordinance which would force the companies to give them what they called a substantial raise.

When the lefty mayor vetoed the ordinance (which is shocking in and of itself!), the council over-rode the veto.  Of course I like to see workers get paid as much as they can earn in a free market, and I trust that market – drivers, customers and ride services – to hash out what a fair wage is, rather than having that dictated by a bunch of bureaucrats.

The Guardian’s headline is hilarious in its cluelessness.  The first half reads, “Minneapolis drivers protested wages – and won.”  But then, the second half of the headline tells the rest of the story, “Lyft and Uber are choosing to leave the city rather than pay up.” 

UNEXPECTEDLY!

“Yay!” say the drivers, “Victory is ours!”

Annnndddd… the drivers are out of work, and more citizens are stranded without rides. 

Spoiler alert, people: the real minimum wage – always and everywhere – is zero.  And you’ll be earning exactly that!

Speaking of minimum wages and dopes who haven’t learned their lesson, how about that California?  Next week a new law goes into effect that raises fast food workers’ pay in Cali from $16 an hour to $20.

Yay!  Power to the people!  It’s about time that pimply-faced teenagers at McDonalds are able to afford a cliff-top mansion next to Babs Streisand in Santa Barbara!

Annnnndddd…

Well, you know.  McDonalds and Chipotle have already said menu price hikes are coming.  Pollo Loco will be automating salsa-making, and Jack in the Box is testing fryer robots.  Pizza Hut is laying off all in-house delivery drivers, and a smaller chain is cutting 73 driver positions by mid-April.

UNEXPECTEDLY!

Thousands of fast-food workers who were starving at $16 an hour will now be thriving at $0 an hour.  Congratulations everybody!  Well done, Gavin!

Meanwhile, 6600 households in New York City – which should be known as “California East” or “Minneapolis South” – were recently polled about how satisfied they are with the way things have been going in their city. 

Since 76% of them voted for Biden in 2020 and 66% of them voted for Eric Adams for mayor in 2021, and they have voted heavily for the one-party Democrat control that they now have, they all reported that everything is both hunky dory and tickety-boo in the Big Apple.  The end.

HA!  I kid, because I love.

Actually, a sizable majority of New Yorkers have recognized that their city has gone to shite in ways various and sundry, and half of them say they are planning to leave.

The numbers are grim.   “Only 37 percent are happy with the level of public safety in their neighborhood, and only 34 percent are satisfied with their neighborhood’s cleanliness.” When asked to rate the quality of life in NYC overall, only 29.8% said “excellent” or “good.” 

And that’s down from 51.2% in 2017!   

Breitbart sums it up well: “The same Democrats complaining about this voted for this. They voted to end stop-and-frisk. They voted for politicians who declared New York a sanctuary for illegal aliens. They voted to release violent criminals. And now they are all, ‘Oh no, our city sucks. How could this have happened?’”

We can tell them how…

UNEXPECTEDLY!

And now, for a quick little “celebration of excellence” from right here at home…

Ron DeSantis just whipped the Mau’s House again!  Disney finally gave up their big, year-long lawsuit, with the only condition being that Florida drops their counter-suit.

Which is the equivalent of a trash-talking boxer preening and mouthing off before a fight, and then, five rounds later, begging the other fighter, “Please stop hitting me.  No mas.  Let me crawl around the canvas and try to find my mouthpiece, which I’m hoping has at least some of my teeth in it!”

The DeSantis team took a victory lap online, re-posting some of the MSM headlines from when Disney first filed their self-humiliating lawsuit, which came after DeSantis challenged their last-minute, dirty-trick appointment of an all-new board to the Reedy Creek Development District.

At the time, lefty outlets crowed, “RDS’ Board Rages Against Disney after Legal Humiliation!” and “Out-negotiated by Mickey Mouse: How Disney just Beat Ron DeSantis!”

And now, after having their first “free-speech” lawsuit against RDS tossed in January, they’ve lost the final round to him.

Man I hope we can someday have that guy as our president!

One final note: we’ve enjoyed having our youngest – or as I like to call her, my tech support – at home with us during her spring break this week.  She was able to fix a problem I’ve had with my website.

Regular readers know that whenever I post a new column on the CO site, I post my previous one on my page (Martinsimpsonwriting.com).  I’ve also recorded a couple of videos of my rambling on various topics, but I’ve had to house them on Youtube.  My last one – titled “CS Lewis & William F. Buckley on our Current Election” – had a glitch that kept people from seeing it.

My daughter spent two minutes doing some kind of sorcery over the keyboard, and my three videos can now all be found on my site, under “Videos” on the main page, and I’ll be recording and posting another one shortly.  If you’re interested, and don’t mind watching a guy with a face made for radio, please check them out.

Also, if I wasn’t so proud of her I wouldn’t mention this, but my youngest just accepted a 10-week, paid research fellowship in astro-physics this summer at UC-Boulder.  If that’s a good experience, she wants to apply to start a PhD there next fall.  Which would mean that both of my daughters would be living within about 40 miles of each other, in a gorgeous place that we love to visit! 

I know.  I’m a simple hillbilly English major, and all I know about planets is that Men are from mars, women are from Venus, and all other made-up genders are pulled from Uranus. (Dad joke!)  And my daughter is double-majoring in astro-physics and planetary science!

Honestly, I sometimes feel like I’m being pranked.  I’ve got a smoke-show wife with a heart of gold, two amazing daughters, a paragon of canine excellence in Cassie the Wonder Dog, and the amazing CO nation to rant to instead of paying for therapy! 

And Easter is coming! 

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

Hamas delenda est!

How Did Squatting Become a Thing in the US? (posted 3/27/24)

Today’s topic is squatters. 

I’m not sure why there are suddenly a spate of stories about squatters in the news, but I’m sure of one thing: allowing strangers to help themselves to other’s houses is a big red flag warning that society is rapidly deteriorating.

At the risk of sounding like an old guy saying, “In my day, this never would have been allowed to go on,” let me say – as a youthful, vibrant 60-is-the-new-40 guy, “In my day this never would have been allowed to go on.”

But the issue isn’t just chronological, it’s also geographical, cultural, and political. 

I grew up in a series of small towns in Illinois, and while I can’t imagine someone forcing their way into one of my relatives’ houses and claiming it for his own, I can somehow exactly imagine the reactions of my uncles, dad or grandpa — and possibly my grandma, and one of my orneriest aunts – if that had ever happened.

It would go exactly like this: 

10-year-old me (bursting through my grandpa’s screen door):  Gramps, some guy let himself into Aunt Carol’s house and says that it’s his now!

Grandpa (putting down his mason jar of corn liquor): How big is he?

Me: Why?

Grandpa: Cause I need to know whether to get my axe handle or my gun.  Also, call your dad, Bob, Ray and Bill, and tell them to meet me at Carol’s.  Oh, and call Doc Johnson, too.

Me: Why?

Grandpa: Cause none of us went to medical school, so we don’t know how to patch up gunshot wounds or remove axe handles from arses.

And, scene.

But again, it’s not just chronological.  It’s also geographical – I’ll bet there’s no rash of squatting in rural areas or red states, unless it’s in a big blue city in a red state – and cultural – it’s not happening in areas with lots of cohesive families and an appreciation of the second amendment.

The umbrella stretching over all of those factors, though, is politics.  Squatting can only happen in an area where soft-on-crime, anti-gun, and coercive, sclerotic, big government policies have taken hold and created a backwards moral system that punishes law-abiding citizens and rewards law breakers.   

The contrast is clear from two recent examples.  You have probably seen the story of the middle-class Brooklynite who inherited her mother’s house, but found several squatters living in it when she went there.  So shooed a couple of them out and barely finished changing the locks when a third squatter barged back in, insisting that he lived there.

When she pushed back, he called the cops, and they ended up arresting her for changing the locks on her own house, and told her she’d have to go through landlord/tenant court to get him out.  Which will take months or even a year and cost her tons of money, while the deadbeat squatter just laughed.  

Meanwhile, in the free state of DeSantis-land, things went a little differently when a recidivist Biden voter (I’m guessing about that. But I’m also right.) named Brandon Harris was serially breaking into homes.  He had at least 17 prior arrests, plus multiple outstanding felony warrants at the time. 

As the cops headed for the neighborhood, one homeowner shot at Harris several times, but tragically missed.  The cops arrived and arrested Harris, and the local sheriff gave a press conference shortly afterwards. 

I swear I am not making up this exact quote from that Sheriff’s press conference:

“As to the person… we don’t know what homeowner—which homeowner shot at him.  I guess they think that they did something wrong, which they did not.  If someone is breaking into your house, you’re more than welcome to shoot him in Santa Rosa County.  We prefer that you do, actually.  So whoever that was, you’re not in trouble.  Come see us. We have a gun safety class we put on every other Saturday.  If you take that, you’ll shoot a lot better, and hopefully you’ll save the taxpayers money.”   

Yes!!  If Trump hasn’t settled on a VP pick yet, may I suggest this guy?

As a small-time landlord, this issue is especially personal for me.  Over the last 25 years, I’ve managed to buy and fix up three rental houses.  They’ve slowly appreciated, and now they constitute the bulk of our retirement income, and an inheritance for our daughters. 

I would never have bought them if I thought that after years of patience, work and hassle, some lazy grifter could squat in one of them, and I’d be forced to wage a court battle and watch while he tore up the place for months on end.  I’m not a violent person… but I’d be willing to learn.  

And then the cops would arrive, and I’d have to try to come up with an explanation for how the squatter fell down the stairs and impaled himself on that axe handle.

In that sense, the leftist instinct to empathize with and go easy on criminals leads to many Kyle Rittenhouses, and a lot of other vigilante action.  Bad government incentivizes vigilantes, and when it does, my sympathy is with the vigilantes. 

If you don’t like that – I’m talking to you, progressives who are very concerned about the civil rights of “protestors” (often rioters) – you need to support your police.  Fund them, train them, give them moral and legal support, and yes, hold them accountable when they behave badly.

But without funding and community support, the police will absent themselves – either actively, as when they quit or retire, or passively, as when they stay in their cars and allow social rot, especially in neighborhoods where they know they’ll be attacked by the politicians and populace no matter what they do.

I can’t see myself ever living in a blue state – to paraphrase an old joke about Texans, “I wasn’t born in Florida, but I got here as soon as I could.” – but if I were forced to (because of family or some other exigency) I sure wouldn’t invest in real estate there.   And because many millions of wise Americans feel the same, they are leaving blue states and counties for red ones.

As that shift happens, the quality of life in blue areas, on many fronts – crime, taxation, unemployment, lousy schools, etc. – is deteriorating.

UNEXPECTEDLY!

Cause and effect, reaping and sowing, schadenfreude and karma – they all work, and they are mortal enemies of leftist governing philosophy. 

In the meantime, Florida just passed an anti-squatting law.   It preserves the rights of legitimate tenants to legally contest evictions, but in obvious squatting situations, it enables cops to immediately evict squatters and charge them with crimes.   Ron DeSantis is going to sign it shortly, and it goes into effect on July 1st. 

Man I hope we can someday have that guy as our president!

Hamas delenda est!

Stephanopoulos Shames Himself, A Criminal Brings a Hammer to a Gunfight, and Bibi Tells Biden to Stick It (posted 3/25/24)

The ridiculous stories are coming at us so fast that I might have to make this another three-column week.  No promises, but I’ll do my best.

We Don’t Hate the Media Enough

This story is already two weeks old, but I have to mention it: George Stephanopoulos put on a truly shameless display when he interviewed Nancy Mace on his sleazy Sunday morning show. 

He opened with a clip of Mace talking about her rape when she was a teenager, and then attacked her for supporting Trump, whom GS dishonestly said – 10 times! – had been found “liable of rape” against the crackpot E. Jean Carroll.

Mace fought back and repeatedly played the victim card – rare as it may be, she was actually justified in this case for doing so!  But I wish she had really attacked GS directly, because he certainly deserves it.  I wanted to hear her say something like this:

“George, are you telling me that I shouldn’t support a candidate just because he’s been accused of rape?” (Wait for him to give a smug, self-righteous reply.)  “Well didn’t you coordinate the vicious attacks on Bill Clinton’s numerous sex assault victims, including Juanita Broaddrick, who credibly accused him of raping her?  And didn’t you call those victims “nuts and sluts?”  And didn’t you refer to their true accusations as “bimbo eruptions?” 

“And by the way George, you know very well that Tara Reade has credibly accused Joe Biden of doing to her exactly what Jean Carroll said Trump did to her, except that Reade knows the year it happened, as well as the day and the place and the details.  Since her charge is so much more credible than Carroll’s, will you agree to denounce Joe Biden right now, and urge your dozens of viewers to refuse to vote for him, since you strongly disapprove of rapists?”

Ugh.  If our MSM weren’t thoroughly corrupt, they’d never hire someone like GS, and if he had a conscience and even a scintilla of self-awareness, he’d never be able to attack a rape victim on air, after he’s spent decades pimping for Clinton and Biden.

To follow that story up with a little schadenfreude chaser: Trump has filed suit against ABC News and GS for defamation.  Those suits don’t usually succeed, but Trump’s might have a chance, since GS repeatedly said that a jury found Trump “liable for rape.”

Unfortunately for him and ABC News, and even though the Carroll jury were biased hacks who bent over backwards to pretend to believe her, even THEY couldn’t go as far as GS claimed.

They answered 10 charging questions in their verdict.  The first one read, “Did Ms. Carroll prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that Mr. Trump raped Ms. Carroll.”

Their answer, and I quote, was “No.”

So here’s hoping that Trump beats George like he’s going to beat Fani’s fanny.

Stupid Criminals

Today’s Stupid Criminals story has a little mystery to it, because I found two media stories about it, but one says that it happened in Trenton NJ, and the other in Muskegon County, MI.  So let’s just look at what the stories agree on:

At 2:00 a.m., Citizen-of-the-Year candidate Andray Ingram, 34, used a hammer to break into an apartment and assaulted the resident there. Then he tried to enter the main home that apartment was attached to.  He broke the ring camera with the hammer and made it inside, before the owner greeted him with a pistol.

Shortly after that, cops arrived to find Andray with a brand new hole in his chest.  He was taken to a local hospital, where he joined the choir invisible. 

The moral may at first seem obvious: Moron Brings Hammer to Gunfight, Goes Down Swinging.

But I think the lesson is more complicated:

Hammer vs. Unarmed resident; Hammer Wins.

Hammer vs. Ring Camera: Hammer Wins.  But…

Hammer vs. Pistol; Armed Homeowner Wins.  

In other good news, the Israelis ignored Tony Blinken, Que Mala and the Biden administration’s strongly worded letters telling them to leave Hamas alone now that they are trapped and one the edge of defeat in Northern Gaza.  (You know, like the allies left Hitler alone once we had him trapped in Berlin, or the way we left the Japanese alone once they had pulled back to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.)

Instead, the IDF raided the al-Shifa hospital over the weekend, killing 170 terrorists and capturing 480 more.  They also “located weapons and terrorist infrastructure in the hospital.”  (You know, the way your local hospital will also be a staging place for jihadi lunatics, RPGs and AK-47s.)

Israel also said that it killed Fa’aq Mabhouh – a guy whose name sounds like a verb followed by a direct object – whom it identified as Hamas’ “head of internal security.” 

According to NPR, though, “The Government Media Office in Gaza said Mabhouh was in charge of the coordination between tribes and UNRWA to bring humanitarian aid into northern Gaza.” 

They say “tomato,” I say “tomahto.”  And by now, I think we all know what Hamas calls “humanitarian aid,” don’t we? 

Anyway, I’ll always remember Fa’aq as the guy whose name I will NOT spell out phonetically, because I’m a gentleman.  If I weren’t so gentlemanly, I’d be tempted to speak for all of us when I say to the “Government Media Office in Gaza” (which, oddly enough, is Arabic for “NPR”), “Fa’aq Mabhouh, and the horse you rode in on!”

But I am a gentleman, and I know that hearing about the deaths of so many terrorists can hurt the tender feelings of many of our leftist brethren and cistern, let me rephrase what happened in a way that will ease their minds:

“Women’s health care in Gaza was defended by IDF medical personnel who surgically removed 170 tissue masses at the al-Shifa hospital.  These “parts of a woman’s body” ranged in age from 57 to 165 trimesters.  You are now free to shout these abortions.”    

Sorry.  My crack staff tells me that “cistern” was the wrong word to use in the last sentence, and that I should have used “sistren.”  I apologize for the mistake, and will happily amend my last paragraph to replace “cistern” with “septic tank.”   Mea culpa.

Celebration of Excellence

Finally, I highly recommend to you the Daily Wire’s new 8-part video series by Bill Whittle on the history of the Soviet Union, called “An Empire of Terror.”  I’ve only watched the first episode and the first five minutes of the second, and it is stellar.  The production values are high, and it provides a great re-cap for people who already know the outlines of the story.

It really brings alive the heartbreaking cruelty and malice at the heart of all top-down central control schemes (99% of them leftist), and the shocking extent to which those evil forces worked in Russia.  And for those who have only learned about the story in public school – i.e. those who have barely heard of it – it will be a gut-wrenching revelation.

Whittle knows how to tell a story by starting with some intriguing details, and then providing a Paul Harvey-esque “the rest of the story” payoff. 

For example, the second episode begins with the story of a train carrying a devastating biological secret weapon that left Switzerland for Germany and then on to Russia in November of 1917.  Whittle reveals that Lenin was on that train, then cites a haunting 1929 quote from Churchill: “The Germans turned upon Russia the most grisly of all weapons.  They transported Lenin in a sealed train like a plague bacillus…”    

Whittle hammers home the point: “Lenin was not carrying the weapon. Lenin WAS the weapon.”  

The comparison of communist ideology to a plague bacillus is chilling, but it might even be understating its destructiveness!  In the 14th century, the Black Plague killed no more than 30 million people at the most, while communism killed 100 million people in just the last 87 years of the 20th century.  (And the actual plague never imprisoned, tortured and immiserated tens of millions more, the way the commies did!)

You need to subscribe to the Daily Wire to see the entire series now, but I think most conservatives would benefit from supporting the Daily Wire.  They have some great writers/speakers (Andrew Klavan, Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro among them), and they make docs (What is a Woman?) and comedies (Lady Ballers) that Hollywood wouldn’t touch.

They are even making wholesome cartoons for kids to counter the agenda-driven, grooming weirdos at Disney and elsewhere.  

So check out “An Empire of Terror,” if for no other reason than to say, “Fa’aq Mabhouh!” to Disney and the MSM.

Hamas delenda est!

Dems Create a Bloodbath, a Racist Movie Bombs, Planet Fitness Implodes, & Tim Tebow Rules (posted 3/22/24)

We’ve got a full line-up of stories, so let’s start with a new category, with a hat tip to Red State for the title:

You Don’t Hate the Media Enough

One of the most despicable traits of our mainstream media is the bad faith way that they take a quote wildly out of context, and then pull their dresses over their heads and launch into a performance art piece of faux outrage. 

One example would be when Sarah Palin referred to “targeting” vulnerable Democrat candidates for House and Senate seats, and the MSM pretended to believe that she was soliciting hitmen to kill Dem candidates, or something.  

Maybe the most famous example was when Trump joked in a 2016 speech that maybe the Russians could find and turn over Hillary’s lost emails.  It is still hard to believe that the Democrats were mendacious enough to pretend that he was collaborating with the Russians, and to use that obviously humorous quip as the basis for a presidential impeachment!

They were at it again this week, this time pretending that when Trump used the word “bloodbath,” he wasn’t discussing dire financial ramifications of allowing the Chicoms to attack our car market.  Even though the quote came from the middle of a speech about… wait for it… the dire financial ramifications of allowing the Chicoms to attack our car market.

No, the Dems cried havoc, and let slip the whores of war. 

Wait, that’s not right.  I meant the dogs of war.  Or was it the dog-faced pony soldiers of the presstitues of the MSM?

Anyway, everyone from Imhotep Pelosi (Aiiii! The mummy walks among us!) to every Dem pol and media talking head in sight started ranting about how Trump was calling for a genocide, or something.

Of course multiple conservative web sites immediately cited Merriam Webster’s definition of “bloodbath,” one meaning of which is “a major economic disaster.”

(Like, for example, the dire ramifications of allowing Chicoms to attack our car market.)

And they also quickly produced a series of news clips featuring dozens of Democrats and MSM “journalists” (but I repeat myself) using the word in exactly the same way Trump did.

Ugh!  As this category suggests, whenever we think we might really hate the lying media, we must remember that we STILL don’t hate them enough.

But I’m not a hater.

A mocker and a sarcastic critic, sure.  Guilty as charged.  But I’m no hater.

Therefore, I’m going to give our leftist opposition a fantastic tip to make their “journalism” less pathetic:  If you’re going to insist that the word “bloodbath” be taken literally – which is incredibly stupid, but hey, you do you – then it must be used only when there is literally blood involved. 

Here are a couple of examples:

“Democrats defund police; bloodbaths ensue in major blue cities.”

“Democrats open our borders to hordes of foreign criminals; bloodbaths ensue.”

“Taxpayer money is used to fund Planned Parenthood abortuaries all over the country; it’s a bloodbath every day!”

You’re welcome, Democrats.  Now please re-think your life choices.

Today in Schadenfreude Corner, I’ve got a quick bit of movie news.

If you’re not a low-down whitey-hating racist – and I know that you aren’t – you probably missed the promotional push leading up to the opening last Friday of the movie, “The American Society of Magical Negroes.”

And your mental health is better for it.  Unfortunately for me, part of my heroic role here at Cautious Optimism is to subject myself to various political assaults on the American project so that you don’t have to. 

I won’t lie though: I did not watch this movie.  But I did read two reviews, and then I watched the trailer. (On an unrelated note, if there are any opthalmologists in CO Nation, can you tell me how long the burning and blurred vision that comes after splashing bleach in one’s eyes usually lasts?  Asking for a friend.)

The premise is that white people are so maliciously racist that they are a constant threat to innocent black people, requiring blacks to condescend to their white fragility.  The mentor to the protagonist sets the table in the first minute of the trailer, when he asks his protégé, “What’s the most dangerous animal on the planet?”

Just as the kid starts to answer, “Sharks,” the mentor interrupts him with, “White people…when they feel uncomfortable.”

Get it?  It’s not a racist screed played ironically as a horror film, or an acerbic social critique. 

It’s a comedy!

(I’m reminded of an old Gilbert Gottfried routine in which he imagined the pitch meeting to persuade tv executives to greenlight “Hogan’s Heroes”: “It’s about a bunch of allied prisoners in a concentration camp during the holocaust.  And it’s a comedy!”)

So this insulting mess of a film opened in 1,146 theaters nationwide on March 15th… annnddd… it bombed!  It brought in a pathetic $1.3 million on its opening weekend, and that total included a huge drop from its first day to its second.    

Even more shockingly, it only got 31% from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, even though the critics famously give virtue-signaling extra points for woke themes in movies.  Any film focusing on a transgender handi-capable person of color fighting the patriarchal forces of white, straight America is usually spotted 60% right off the bat (10 points for each of those checked boxes). 

So for even lefty critics to only give this mess 31% speaks to what a horrible abomination it is.  (For comparison, the critics gave Rob “Meathead” Reiner’s Christophobic “documentary” “God and Country” 88%!)    

To put it another way, if you added the earnings from the Meathead movie and this racist trash together, you wouldn’t even have enough cash to hire renowned Ukrainian energy expert Hunter Biden to lobby his dear departed daddy for one single month!  

Speaking of financially disastrous decision-making, I’ve got a new entry in the “Unexpectedly” category:

The Planet Fitness chain of gyms recently started coercing their employees and customers to cater to the desires of sexually confused “transgender” people. 

The business produced an operational manual that required employees to use “names, titles and pronouns” of strange sexual narcissists, and threatened to fire them if they wouldn’t do so. 

The manual also acknowledged that some customers might “feel uncomfortable” with people of the opposite sex sharing showers and bathrooms with them, but insisted that, “This discomfort is not a reason to deny access to a transgender member.” 

And just to demonstrate the company’s Orwellian bona fides, the manual said that this deranged coercion was meant “to foster a climate of understanding consistent with the Judgement Free character of Planet Fitness.”

Got that?  “Judgment Free.” 

But if a normal woman and her teenage daughter undress and head for the showers after a workout, and they notice some naked dude with heavy mascara and a beehive hairdo sitting in the locker room staring at them while he’s trying to make balloon animals with his phallus? 

If they object, you know that the “understanding” commissars at Planet Fitness are going to judge the hell out of them for being transphobic bigots!

Anyway, late last week the Planet Fitness manual hit social media.

Annnndddd… their stock price plummeted 8% immediately, shaving $400 million off the company’s value.

UNEXPECTEDLY!  (Also: more please.)

In Stupid Criminal news, I’ll take you to the big open space where our southern border used to be for the story of a guy who might be the dumbest criminal I’ve ever written about.  (And I’ve written about the Biden crime family!)

This charmer is a 22-year old Lebanese named Basel Bassel Ebbadi.  (He’s the terrorist so nice, they named him twice!) He was caught by the US Border Patrol in Texas on March 9th. 

And even though I’m wary of disclosing sensitive tactics involving our national security, I’m going to disclose one clever forensic technique our border agents used to trip up ol’ double-Basel:  They asked him – and this is a quote – “What are you doing in the US?”

And he said, “I’m going to try to make a bomb.”

(Rumors that he then slapped his forehead, said “D’oh!  I mean, I’m here to seek political asylum,” have not been confirmed.)

Further fiendishly ingenious questioning tricked Basel-squared into admitting that he had “trained with Hezbollah for seven years… and guarded weapons locations for another four years.”  And also that he planned to set off his bomb in New York City. 

So a Hezbollah terrorist came through our porous border with plans to blow up part of New York, and the only reason he was caught was that he was dumb enough to confess when he was asked one question.  (This guy is so dumb that he’s been called “the AOC of Jihadis.”) (By me, just now.)

And ABC and CBS did not even mention this story on their flagship morning and evening news shows on Sunday and Monday, while NBC did give it 45 seconds on Monday night.  (Remember: we don’t hate them enough!)

Let’s end with a new and inspiring example of the Celebration of Excellence.

Thirty-seven years ago, a married missionary couple serving in the Philippines were pregnant with their fifth child when the mother suffered a life-threatening infection that required strong drugs which threatened her pregnancy. Doctors advised her to abort the baby because he likely had birth defects because of her severe illness, but she chose to have the child.

That baby was Tim Tebow, who would grow up to become the greatest college football quarterback ever, in my unbiased opinion (Go Gators!), winning two national championships and a Heisman trophy. 

But as good of a player as he was (did I mention he went 4-0 against FSU?), he’s a better man.  He’s been a fine example of Christian faith, raising money for various charities, including the pediatric cancer center at our home-town hospital where my daughter got her first nursing job.

(“Hey Martin,” you might be asking, “was she nominated last week for a state-wide nursing award in Colorado?”  Yes she was, in fact.  Thanks for asking.)  

Ten years ago Tebow started a foundation that puts on an annual “Night to Shine,” a coordinated

series of world-wide “proms” for kids with Down Syndrome and a variety of other disabilities.  (Watch a few of their videos online if you don’t mind getting choked up.)

In the cynical and debased world we live in, it’s hard for me to watch even Tebow without wondering in the back of my mind whether he’s too good to be true and authentic.  But I was glad to see him speak in front of our congress earlier this month (I know: talk about “pearls before swine!”) in support of a bill to fund rescue teams to identify and rescue child sexual abuse victims.

I know that the government can screw up everything it touches, but this is a truly good cause, and I’m going to look into this bill, and I hope that it does what its sponsors want it to.

And I’m glad that his parents brought Tim Tebow into this world.             

Hamas delenda est!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pig (oink-chuckling): Sure they did.

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

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

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

Clydesdale horse: Take it easy, Jerry.

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

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

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

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

Pig: Hey!

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

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

Jerry (narrowing his eyes): Exactly.  #wemustneverstopmockingher

And, scene.

Where was I?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So I’ve got that going for me.

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

Yep.   

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

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

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

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

Got it.     

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

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

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

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

Hamas delenda est!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Unfortunately for Dajuan Robinson, that might be changing.

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

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

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

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

Me!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy anniversary, sweetheart!

Also, as always, Hamas delenda est