Martin Simpson

You may notice that this Friday column is actually appearing on Thursday.  (And if you did, you are provably more coherent than Dr. Jill’s husband, who is constantly mixing up Thursday and Friday. Along with his wife and his sister, and also the Vatican and a bathroom.)

My writing schedule is going to be erratic for the next week or so, because I am taking my third annual May trip with two of my cousins. 

Regular readers may remember that one of the cousins bought a 1976 Cadillac El Dorado three years ago, and the three of us drove it the length of Route 66, from Chicago to LA.  (If you’re interested, you can see my daily diary from that trip on Martinsimpsonwriting.com; scroll down to see “Road Trip.”)

Last year the three of us took the “Lap Around the Lake,” driving around Lake Michigan, from Chicago up through Wisconsin, into Michigan, and back down through Indiana.

I’ll get up to Illinois tonight, and after supper with yet another cousin, we’ll hit the road on Friday.  Depending on the weather, we’ll either be heading for West Virginia and Virginia — seeing Harper’s Ferry, the Shenandoah Valley, etc. – or else heading south, with a stop to see Lincoln’s birthplace in Indiana, followed by taking a tour around Kentucky to see where my dad’s side of the family comes from.

Will we be listening to some John Prine and Tyler Childers as we’re driving around the old Simpson stomping grounds in Kentucky?  Damn straight.  There may even be some moonshine involved, in honor of our humble roots.

Whichever route we take, we’ll be doing some hiking, either in Tennessee on the Appalachian Trail, or in the Virginias.  I plan to write about some of what we’ll be seeing and doing, but I’m not sure when or how often I’ll be posting.

Having said all that, today I’ve just got a few disconnected thoughts for you, based on stories that caught my attention in the last week or so.

In the “good news” column I’ve got the tale of a 14-year-old Michigan boy whose 8-year-old sister was looking for mushrooms when a 17-year-old boy “came out of the woods and grabbed her.”  As you might expect, the brother defended his sister.

As you might not expect, he did so by deploying his… slingshot!  And if you’re now asking yourself what century this is, me too! 

The story starts out like a Grimm’s Fairy Tale, with a young girl gathering mushrooms (!) and an ogre jumping out of the Black Forest to snatch her.   Then the kid brother goes all Tony Montana on that guy – “Say hello to my leetle slingshot friend!” – before ending up in ancient Israel, where he’s facing off against Goliath. 

If the idea of a kid in 2023 carrying a slingshot isn’t disorienting enough, consider what a badass sling-shotter (sling-shottist?) he is!  If a bad guy was wrestling with your little sister, how confident would you have to be that you could miss her and hit him — with a slingshot!?

Well this kid was apparently a graduate of the Mel Gibson School of Slingshottery, because he both aimed small and missed small.

State troopers found the 17-year-old at a gas station a short time later, suffering from “severe [slingshot] injuries” to his head and chest.  Which has to make for the coolest police report ever written in the history of Michigan.  (“Hey Captain, what caliber would you say that kid’s slingshot is?”)

The only downside of this story: expect the Dems to start screaming about how we need to ban slingshots with large capacity pouches, especially if they’re scary looking “assault” sling shots.

In another feel-good story, leftist dullards in LA just got groin-kicked by reality again, as yet another of their money-grabs failed spectacularly.

Last November, the LA Dems voted for a new “luxury tax” of 4% to 5.5% on houses that sell for more than $5 million.   It passed with a vote of 60%, and the numbskulls who sponsored it crowed about all of the social justice they’d be able to achieve with the $900 million they expected it to raise in the first year.

Well, the tax went into effect on April 1^st, and I’ll bet you can guess what happened.  Because you’re not a leftist who doesn’t understand concepts like incentives, disincentives, and unintended consequences.

The “journalists” at the far-left LA Times must have felt like they’d been caught on the wrong end of a sling shot when they had to report the results.  It turns out that rich homeowners rushed to sell their places before the tax took effect, and if they weren’t able to sell them, they took them off the market.   (Duh!)   

How bad was it?  In March, before the tax, 126 of the targeted properties were sold.  In April, once the tax took effect, that number declined slightly.  To 2! 

As AOC could tell you, that’s a drop of at least 50%, if not more.   

But buck up, little Marxists, because your goal of $900 million might still be achievable.   There are still 11 months left in the year, and you’ve only got $899.5 million more to raise.

Finally, I don’t know how to classify this last story, so I’m just going to report the facts.

An Ohio man named Darren Glines has decided that he’s now a woman, so he started calling himself “Rachel.”  Which isn’t as problematic as the fact that he started going into YMCA female changing rooms and getting naked. 

After he did so when three juveniles – actual females, it turns out – were present, he was charged with indecent exposure.  And because the world has gone crazy, he was acquitted a few weeks ago by an idiot judge. 

Glines’ defense – with which the aforementioned idiotic judge agreed – was that his obesity prevented any indecent exposure. 

That’s right.  The combination of his huge gut and tiny genitals meant that the girls couldn’t have seen the latter.  So case dismissed.

Leave aside the philosophical question of what is more offensive: a male exposing his genitals in a women’s locker room, or a naked zeppelin of a human who identifies as a poorly endowed male, in a women’s locker room. 

Both of those options involve indecent – not to mention traumatic and nausea-inducing – exposure!   And that judge should be forced to shower with Dirigible Darren, while that Michigan kids unloads on both of them with his slingshot.

One final quiz question:  Who do you think has humiliated himself more? 

A. Jeffrey “the one-armed bandit” Toobin, after getting caught pleasuring himself on a Zoom call?

B. Darren Glines with his “huge belly/tiny phallus” defense?

C. Alejandro Mayorkas, after the last several months of embarrassing himself with his transparently dishonest gas-lighting press statements.  (Somewhere in Iraq today, even Baghdad Bob is saying, “Dude, have you no self-respect?”) 

Biden delenda est!

“Dr.” Jill Biden/Alejandro “The Border Czar’s New Clothes” Mayorkas, 2024!

I hope you all had a great Mother’s Day.  I posted a pic of me with my mom from a couple of years ago; you can see it on my site, listed at the bottom of this column.  She has come through her recent covid bout like a champ, so thanks for everyone’s good wishes.

First up today, I’ve got to give some gratitude and sympathy to our military. 

The US Military Academy was founded in 1802.  In the past 221 years, West Point has prepared generations of young Americans to face the rigors of combat and the horrors of war on several continents and against many determined enemies. 

But never have the cadets faced a challenge as daunting as the sword of Damocles hanging over their heads now. Because on May 27^th, the speaker at their graduation is going to be… brace yourselves…

Que Mala Harris.

May God have mercy on their souls.

On the bright side, if the cadets can survive this withering verbal assault, they should have no problems with ever being waterboarded, or captured by the Taliban.  In fact, given the choice, many of them would probably volunteer for both right now, if it would get them out of the doomed public-speaking equivalent of the Battle of Balaklava. 

(“Into the valley of rhetorical disaster/ rode the 600!  Theirs not to make reply/theirs not to reason why/ Theirs but to clap hands over their ears/ and pray to die…”)  

It’s been said that in the past, kings and emperors would take small doses of poison every day to build up an immunity that would protect them from attempted poisonings.  In that spirit, allow me to provide the cadets with a small, prophylactic dose of a simulated Que Mala speech.

Listen to it until your gag reflex kicks in, boys, and then listen to it again.  Because we want you on that wall.  We need you on that wall.  And in order to get onto that wall, you first have to power through the gibbering banalities of Identity-Hire Harris:

“As I speak to you now, currently, in this moment in time, on this beautiful day in May, we are all reminded of the significance of the month of May.  It is not only the month that comes after April.  It is also the month that comes before June, right?  Ha ha HA HA HA HAA!   It reminds us all, even as it carries with it the remembrance of many significant moments that we should recall, and that occur throughout this very significant month.

Moments such as May Day, and May 7^th.  And 29 other days in May.  We think of the maypole, and we should remember the memory of April showers bringing May flowers.  And even mayflies, right?  Ha ha HA HA HAA!  And we must all recall – including me, and you too, and your family, and many other people who aren’t with us today, along with those who are – that our forefathers first came here in the MAYflower.  Which is very significant, and filled with signification, especially when compared to the random fact that Brian May played guitar in the band “Queen.” 

I remember that when I was a young girl, riding the yellow school bus each day – weren’t those GREAT?! Ha ha HA HA HAAA! – we would all play a rousing game of “Mother May I?”  Which wasn’t really about the month of May, but was still incredibly significant…”

If you hear what sounds like a 21-gun salute during her speech, that is probably the sound of some of America’s best, shooting themselves in an extremity so that they can be discharged from the service that they’ve trained for their whole lives. 

Am I saying that this will be the first West Point graduating class in US history to be ravaged by PTSD before they ever step foot on a battlefield?

That is EXACTLY what I’m saying. 

Speaking of military heroes being put through unjustified persecution, the case of Daniel Penny – the Marine who put aggressive recidivist Jordan Neely into a submission hold on the NY subway, inadvertently causing his death – is the latest example of the perversity of leftist policy prescriptions.

Not “perversity” as in disordered men wanting to put on exhibitionist drag shows for children, or Biden nuclear officials posing with weirdos in dog costumes on leashes. Though there is plenty of that nonsense going on. 

I mean “perversity” just in the sense of defying basic logic and reason.  The kind of thing that an average person can look at and – without long study or unusual gifts in terms of IQ or formal study – confidently say, “There’s no way that can work!”

Ideas like, “if we teach people that they’re powerless victims, they’ll end up stronger and better off.” And, “if we take cops off the street and decrease penalties for crime, there will be less crime.”  And, “if we make it harder and more expensive to open a new business, we’ll see a boom in new businesses.”

Because leftist governance in NY has failed at every level, Daniel Penny was put in a no-win situation: wait and watch until a dangerous, ill man assaulted someone, or take action to prevent that. 

Because he tried to do the right thing, the Soros-funded creepy DA has charged him with manslaughter, and his freedom is now going to be in the hands of a New York jury.  While it’s possible that enough of them have been threatened by lunatics like Neely in the past, and might therefore rule correctly, nobody should have to take that gamble.

We should all have Penny’s back, and I’m heartened to see that many people do.  To date he’s received donations of over a million bucks to pay for his defense.  I hope his lawyer beats Alvin Bragg the way Jordan Neely used to beat senior citizens. 

But enough with paying tribute to our long-suffering military heroes.  Let’s heap some scorn on a few leftist clowns who are running into some hilarious trouble lately.

Although former GOP Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker says he’s not going to run for senate next year, a poll of Massholes (as they’re affectionately called) who voted heavily for Grandma Squanto Warren last time have said that if he does run, he’ll beat her by double digits. 

I’ll believe that when I see it, because as with all things Warren, I’ve got… reservations.  (#wemustneverstopmockingher)

But hope springs eternal, and I’d love to spend campaign season putting the “mock” in her moccasins, if there’s any chance that she can be taken down.

On the other coast, Cali governor Ken-Doll Haircut is realizing that the reparations trap that he set way back during the BLM riots of 2020 might be getting ready to snap shut on his featureless plastic genital area. 

Many far-left black folks apparently took him at his word when he promised reparations.  They’ve been holding raucous hearings during which they debate whether they should each get $500K, or $100 million, or eleventy-kajillion dollars.  (In case you haven’t seen that figure before, it’s the financial equivalent of “Juneteenth”: a made-up word that is going to do no one any good.)        

By the time the grievance mongers – not one of whom has an ancestor who was ever enslaved in CA, because there was no slavery in CA (if you don’t count what the Dems running that state are trying to do to taxpayers lately) – settled on $1.2 million each, ol’ Gavin was hiding out in his Barbie Dream House with the blinds drawn, not knowing whether to Schiff or wind his watch.

He’s flip-flopped multiple times in as many days, going from “We’re not looking at cash reparations,” to “I’m not ruling out cash reparations,” to “I’m sorry but I can’t hear your question because the Barbie Beach-Copter rotors are making so much noise and I have to leave now.”

It doesn’t help that in the last year – in between lectures to Ron DeSantis on how to be a good governor – he managed to turn a $100 billion surplus into a $32 billion deficit. So even if he wanted to pander to the grifters, there’s no money to pay for the TMCORBA (that’s right: the Tossing Mountains of Cash Onto a Racial Bonfire Act of 2023).

Don’t you let him get away with that, CA Dem voters!  You’re entitled to your 4000 acres and herd of mules, and you need to vote in 2024 against every lying lefty who promised you that.  Power to the (gullible, greedy) people!

You all saw that Biden recently got caught with his “cheat sheet” question card when calling on a “reporter” in what passes for a news conference with our posthumous prez.

Everybody rightly pointed out that the incident proved yet again what a corrupt bunch of meretrices (points for obscure Latin plural!) our corrupt MSM flunkies are.  (The judges would have also accepted “presstitutes,” though with no added points for the Latin plural.)

But my favorite detail was that Biden’s handlers had to put the “reporter’s” name AND PICTURE on the card.  The way you do with the menu items on McDonald’s cash registers to help the vape-addled, semi-literate teenager working his first shift to avoid staring blankly at the buttons, trying to figure out how many “k”s there are in “McChicken.”

And that brought to mind one of my previous favorite Biden-handling stories, which revealed that in the super-simple instruction sheets they give him, his identifiers are in all caps: “YOU shake the mayor’s hand; YOU walk to the podium,” etc. 

You just know that—

Sorry. YOU just know that that happened because Joe had been hopelessly confused by the earlier versions in which his instructions had appeared in lower case, like he was a functional adult or something.

I don’t even need to put on my conical, purple wizard hat to see that scene in my head as clearly as if I were there:

Joey Gaffes (to his closest handler): I can’t tell who’s doing what here.  This card says to shake the Cardinal’s hand, then walk to the podium, and then kiss the Pope’s ring.  

Handler: Yes.  You were supposed to do those things.

JG : How do I know that?  I thought maybe Dr. Jill was supposed to do that.

Handler: Why would we give you a card to tell you what Jill was supposed to do?

JG: “Doctor” Jill.

Handler (rolling his eyes): Why would your card say what “Dr. Jill” was supposed to do?  It literally says “You” do this or that.

JG:  Look, fat— Just put “YOU” in big letters so I don’t get mixed up. 

Handler:  Is that why you did what you just did?  Because your card didn’t say, “YOU don’t poop on the Pope?”

JG: C’mon man, the card didn’t even say not to poop on the Pope at all.  So that’s on you.

Secret Service guy (whispering into his lapel mic):  Short bus has unloaded.  Repeat, Short Bus has unloaded.  Clean-up on aisle Pontiff.   

And, scene.

Biden delenda est!

“Dr.” Jill Biden/ Ken Doll Haircut, 2024!

A quick note up front: we’ve brought my youngest home from college for the summer, and it’s nice to have at least one of the apples of daddy’s eyes back at home.  (My oldest has selfishly gotten married and moved to Denver, where she’s saving children’s lives as a pediatric nurse.  And not giving us a grandchild yet, even though she’s been married for 10 months, and time’s a wastin’.) 

In addition to being a fine daughter, my youngest is also my tech support.  So after several of you mentioned that you couldn’t find the “Follow” button at my website, I looked myself.  And couldn’t find it either.  And instantly threw up my hands in defeat.

But now that Emily is home, she rolled her eyes and did some kind of magic thing with her hands on the keyboard, and now there is both a tiny “Follow” button, and a larger “Subscribe” bar, either of which you can use to follow my site.  (The buttons are on the right side of my page, just above the pic of Cassie the Wonder Dog in her Norse regalia.) 

Today I’m going to comment only minimally on two of the biggest stories in the news: the acceleration of the ongoing disaster at our border, and the farcical verdict against Trump in the phantom groping incident with E. Jean Carroll.  Because both of those stories create in me a very uncomfortable state of mind.

That mood has been described perfectly by one of history’s great curmudgeons, H.L. Mencken, when he said, “Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.”

I am all too aware of my own character flaws, but I’m trying (in my halting and backsliding way) to follow Uncle Jesus, and I’m pretty sure He’s not too big on the hand-spitting and throat-slitting, rageful mode of addressing the political opposition that I feel every time I think about how the national Dems are damaging our country.

So I’ll just make a few brief comments and then move on. 

The cynical and self-centered Democrat policy of betraying Americans by opening our borders to this many unvetted, unassimilated illegal trespassers will cause electoral, fiscal and cultural damage that it will take decades to repair, if it can ever be repaired. 

And the incoherent judgment for E. Jean Carroll against Trump is the perfect example of why we need the statute of limitations that was rescinded recently in NY.  There is no way anyone could reasonably defend against – or convince a jury worth their salt of – a quarter-century-old, unsupported accusation.  Especially when the accuser is a certifiable loon.

And this lady is cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.  In an interview with Anderson Cooper, she kept going on about how she and most other people think that rape is really “sexy.”  That made Cooper visibly wince, and when he tried to throw to commercial, she creepily came on to him, saying, “You’re a fascinating person to talk to.”

I don’t know if she’s not aware that Anderson plays for Mayor Pete’s team, or if she finds the thought of a septuagenarian lady flirting with a younger gay guy almost as sexy as rape.  But either way: Yikes!

Also, although I’m no law-talkin’ guy, I think that any decent judge overseeing a trial of any conservative in New York City should repeat the move from the trial of Al Capone in The Untouchables: switch the jury with one from some red or purple state, so there’s at least a chance of an unbiased verdict.    

By the way, I assumed that the “E” in this crazy lady’s name must stand for an unpleasant first name, like Edna, or Edwina, because that’s why people usually go with initials instead of names.  (C.S. Lewis was “Clive Staples,” e.e. cummings was “Edward Estlin,” and my grade school principal who went by A.M. was “Ambrose Marvin,” for example.)

But nope.  Her first name is Elizabeth. 

Speaking of which, I bet we can all think of another super-white Elizabeth who also couldn’t tell the truth if her life depended on it.  (#wemustneverstopmockingher)

(Boom!  Double-bank shot into a mis-direction Grandma Squanto reference when you least expected it!)

Moving on to less infuriating stories….

Hey, speaking of pretendians like Lizzy Warren, I just read about another pale, blue-eyed academic who might have out-Warrened the fraudulent Senator from MA.

This lady is the U of Wisconsin’s Kay LeClaire.  “Of the Black Hills Lakota Sioux LeClaires?” you are not asking, because you’re not an idiot. 

Seriously, how do you try to pass as an Indian with a name like that?  Can you sit around a campfire on the first night in a new hunting ground, and everyone else introduces themselves as Running Elk, Flies With Owl and Crazy Horse, and then you say, “Hi, I’m Katie LeClaire!”

Because yeah, until 2017 she went by “Katie,” and identified herself as white, and she married a similarly white guy whose indigenous name was “Adam Pagenkopf.”  But by 2019 she was using “they/them” pronouns (you know, the way Geronimo did) and identifying as “two spirit” (i.e. a recently made-up term meaning a gender-nonbinary Indian). 

And she revealed her “true” Indian name, which I swear I am not making up: “Nibiiwakamigkwe.”  Before you can ask, it’s pronounced exactly like it’s spelled, whitey!

Because when authentic Indians weren’t naming themselves “Katie” after some tribal elder or other, they were choosing their names by upending a Scrabble board and then picking up the first random string of 15 consecutive tiles. 

(And that’s why, even to this very day, many Native Americans have a blank spot in their names.  True story.)

Of course Katie got a UW-paid residency and speaking fees based on her deep Indian roots.  She also founded a “queer Indigenous artists’ collective” – that’s an old Cherokee tradition – and sold genuine Native American crafts.

Which, it turns out, she bought on Etsy. 

I’m not making that up, either. 

So you’re probably thinking that the biggest victims in this story are the taxpayers of Wisconsin, or the cheesehead students who shared a college campus with this fraud.  But you’re wrong.  Because the biggest victim here is Adam Pagenkopf.

The poor guy married this Aryan-looking woman whom he thought was a fan of heterosexual intercourse and the Green Bay Packers, and he ended up with some non-binary nutjob who sells Chinese-made dream-catchers and rubber tomahawks delivered bi-weekly from Amazon.

Plus she’s a progressive, so you know she insisted he take her name when they got married. 

Yeah.  He’s been signing mortgage forms, tax returns and credit card receipts with “Adam Pagenkopf- Nibiiwakamigkwe,” a few thousand times.  The poor bast**d.

In news closer to home, CO mentioned last week that one of his alma maters – Northwestern – has gone woke.  I sadly have to say the same for one of my alma maters.  I got my MA from Illinois State, and this semester, they shamefully participated in the racist identity politics of the left by holding segregated graduations.

The first of those ceremonies was called a “Lavender Graduation,” and was intended for LGBTQ+ students.  (Not “Let’s Get Biden To Quit, + Que Mala as well.”  The other kind.)  But this time, they added a term that was new to me: “ace-identified.”

As I looked that up, I was hoping against hope that the new term referred to eccentric people who had somehow managed to shoot down at least 5 enemy aircraft in combat.  But no such luck.

“Ace-identified” means people who have no interest in having sex, AKA “a-sexuals.”

First, to them I say, “thank you.”  Because I’ve seen some videos of the alphabet squad in various protests, parades, and primal scream therapy sessions, and for them to choose not to have sex at all seems like a win-win for everyone. 

Second, I’m guessing that they may be misidentifying just a bit.  Because realizing that nobody on earth wants to have sex with you is NOT the same thing as saying that you’re nobly choosing to not have sex with anyone.   But hey, you do you, Ace! 

The second graduation was called “Nuestros Logros,” which, if my high school Spanish has served me well, means “our log-rolling.”

Wait. That doesn’t sound right. 

And…… the Spanish-to-English translator says it means “our achievements.”  Which makes more sense.

As you might guess, that ceremony is for “Latinx” graduates, even though no self-respecting Hispanic since “stout Cortez… with eagle eyes… [first] star’d at the Pacific” (John Keats rules!) has ever called him or herself a “la-tinx.”

Another option was the “Umoja” ceremony, for black students.

And finally, the “MAPS” ceremony.  When I first read this one, I was praying that it wasn’t for “minor-attracted persons,” which is – still not making this up – the new p.c. term for pedophiles. 

Fortunately, my prayer was answered.  The MAPS group is the Middle Eastern, Asian, Pacific Islander and Southeast Asian graduates. 

I couldn’t help but notice, after reading through that list of tribal identifications, that plain vanilla white folks (so to speak) aren’t mentioned.  I was raised in Central Illinois back in old-timey days, and as I recall, there were quite a few white folks around back then.  In fact, if I had to guess, I’d say there were at LEAST two white kids for every Pacific Islander or transgender Sri Lankan I ran into at the Corn Festival each fall. 

Have they all been driven out of the state?  If not, do they just leave campus in shame after four years, and wait to get their diplomas in the mail? 

Does anybody think this kind of separatism is a positive, healthy sign for our society?  Does no one have  any quibbles about racially segregated dorms, student unions, majors, and now graduations?  Will we soon have separate drinking fountains for MAPS, Latinx, and members of the African diaspora?

(And if the LGBTQ fountain doesn’t have a sign over it saying, “Gender Fluid,” I will be very disappointed.)

If so, I guess we Appalachian Simpsons will just revert to drinking out of the hose, as is our cultural tradition.  

After all this grim news about Northwestern and ISU, you may be asking yourself whether the fact that both CO and I have managed to achieve such greatness later in life – despite the now-manifest unworthiness of two of the educational institutions where we studied – is a tribute to our ability to overcome such challenges due to our impeccable character and towering intellect.

It would be immodest of me to answer that question.

But yes.

Yes it is. 

Biden delenda est!

“Dr.” Jill Biden/Katie Nibiiwakamigkwe-Pagenkopf, 2024!

Listen, I’d love to start your Monday out on a high note. 

I’d love to tell you that the banks aren’t failing, and millions of illegals aren’t crouched down in sprinters’ blocks waiting to bum-rush the border on Thursday, and Tucker’s back on the air.

And that I’ve mastered the guitar after three weeks’ practice and will be going on a 10-city tour with CO in June, and that we are now taking applications for extra roadies, most of whom will be needed to deal with the veritable clouds of female undergarments we expect to be tossed onstage during our performances.

But I can’t tell you that. 

Because the banks are dropping like Kennedys at an open bar, and the illegals are chomping at the bit like so many biological males in a NCAA women’s track event.  And I still suck at the guitar.

So the best I can do is offer two moments of levity before facing our country’s currently alarming situation.

First, a dumb joke you may have heard before: 

Q: What’s the difference between a filthy Greyhound waiting room and a lobster with breast implants?

A: One’s a crusty bus station, and the other’s a busty crustacean. 

Second, a dumb politician, whom you’ve definitely heard too much of:

Last week, a reporter asked Mayor Pete if he hopes to serve another term as secretary of transportation.  (That’s already a joke, although no one is laughing.)  

His answer, which I swear I am not making up: “Right now, I’ve got my head down, seeking to deliver.”

If you’ve ever watched the great cartoon Archer, this is where we say, “Phrasing!”

All right.  To paraphrase John Fetterman at the beginning of a debate, “That’s all the good news I’ve got.  Goodnight everybody!”  

On to two red-flag cultural items ripped from the headlines.

First, the outrageous story of a death on the subway, and the horde of nihilistic fools who can neither see nor tell the truth about the hellscape that they’re helping turn NYC (and Chicago, and LA, and San Francisco, and Baltimore…) into.

To hear them tell it, a saintly African-American named Jordan Neely – who would have been an honor student and currently on the verge of discovering a cure for cancer if Amerika’s evil racism hadn’t blighted his life – was minding his own business on the subway, when an evil white guy strangled him to death. 

Because: racism.

As you already know, unless you just awakened from a 30-year coma three minutes ago and then started reading this column, this leftist tale was a ridiculous attempt to whitewash the perp’s background and actions. 

How white was that wash, you may be asking?  As white as Elizabeth Warren, if you can believe that.  (#wemustneverstopmockingher)

(Several faithful readers recently pointed out that I hadn’t mocked the Land o’ Lakes Butter Maiden (D- Massachusetts) in several consecutive columns.  So mea culpa.)   

In reality, Neely was a tragically common figure in our large, Democrat-run cities lately: a recidivist who was alternatively severely mentally ill, an addict, a career criminal, or some combination of the three.  At age 30 he’d already racked up 42 arrests.

His resume included at least 4 other violent offenses, one against an elderly woman that left her with a broken orbital socket among other injuries.  In fact, he had an open warrant for a violent assault when he got on the subway and acted exactly like someone who has an open warrant for his arrest.

“But wait, Martin,” you are not asking, because you know better, “I thought he was only minding his business when he was unjustifiably strangled?”

Nope.  He was threatening other riders, hollering semi-coherently, and generally carrying on like an aggressive and unstable man.   

And the guy who “strangled” him?  He’s a Marine who chose to try to subdue the guy, rather than stand by and watch him assault or harm anyone else in the train car.   And he didn’t use the amount of force that he could have, considering his training. 

He didn’t drill the guy with punches to especially vulnerable places, or try to smash his trachea with an elbow strike, or use any of the other brutal tactics that a soft English professor like me knows nothing about.    

He put the guy in a submission chokehold, and when Neely resisted, several other riders – black, as it happened – got on top of him until he passed out. 

So naturally, when the Marine’s justified actions unintentionally resulted in the violent criminal’s death, the worst people in New York showed up to protest and lie and race-bait.  They screamed at and assaulted cops so blatantly that even in benighted NYC, a handful of them were arrested… at least temporarily.

To prevent commuters from getting somewhere to do something productive, some of the protestors jumped down on the train tracks to disrupt subway traffic. 

Tragically, none of them were either electrocuted or smashed by a train like Neely’s old-lady victim’s orbital socket. 

And before we can be tempted to dismiss the mob’s despicable reactions as the behavior of a stupid and malicious underclass of insignificant d-bags, into the fray marched the (clotted) cream of the (rancid) crop of NY’s finest leftist politicians.

NY Governor (and semi-professional Wicked Witch of the West impersonator) Kathy Hochul mewled about how “horrific” it was to watch a video of Neely “being killed for being a passenger” on the subway. 

AOC, proving that none of us can tell the difference between her juicy booty – her words, not mine – and the hole in her head, called the Marine a “murderer” and accusing him of “lynching” Neely.

I guess I can just cut and paste Shakespeare’s line from the Tempest into every column I write from now on: “Hell is empty, and all of the devils are here.”

The plight of the remaining good people in any of the big blue cities is truly tragic.  That Marine tried to do the right thing, as did the other riders who helped him subdue Neely, and the still others who thanked and congratulated him on video afterwards. 

In any sane city, he would have received the thanks of civic leaders, and would not have to pay for a drink in any city bars.  But in a Democrat Schiff-hole, he now has to hire a lawyer and bankrupt himself with legal fees, and hope that he’s not convicted and jailed for his bravery and protection of others.

It’s heartbreaking to have to say this, but the good people of New York should leave as soon as they can.  The evil scumbags who run that town – and the evil scumbags who vote for them – have put good New Yorkers in a no-win situation.

They’ve purposely ensured that vicious criminals and the severely mentally ill remain on the streets and in the subways.  When one of them confronts you – and they eventually and repeatedly will – you have to choose between passively placing your life in their demented hands, or else trying to resist them, and ending up either injured, dead or in jail.

Get out now! 

Not only will you be able to survive and thrive outside of that Hobbesian dystopia, but by removing yourself, you’ll ensure that the NEXT victims of the criminal predators will be Hochul, AOC, Pritzker and the whole rotten bunch of leftist predator-enablers who put them in power. 

And then they’ll get exactly what they asked for… good and hard.

Finally, turning from the tragic to the pathetic, I am compelled to address Que Mala’s latest public performance.  You’ve probably seen this by now, but if you haven’t, you missed a classic that is destined to end up there with her deathless “the significance of the passage of time” ramble. 

(In fact, I think that there may be something about the concept of time that triggers whatever sub-set of Tourrette’s that she has, because this one also involved her deep thoughts about time.)

To say that she spewed out some more word salad is to not do her justice. 

She went to the word salad bar and filled up her plate, and then went back for seconds! 

She was talking to an audience at the historically black school Howard University.  (Which really should make her performance a racial hate crime.) 

Her speech was nominally about how great abortion is, and how terrible the GOP is, and how much she loves the LGBTQ movement.  (Not “Let’s Get Biden To Quit.”  The other one.) (The one in which the big hulking dudes are competing against women in sports, and giving them concussions by slapping them forcefully with their totally female phalli.  And then giving interviews with their totally female voices that somehow sound like James Earl Jones.)

But when Que Mala speaks, the alleged subject matter is never the issue.  It’s the words.  Oh, the words!

Saith VP Muy Malo:  “So I think it’s very important, as you have heard from so many incredible leaders for us at every moment in time and certainly this one, to see the moment in time in which we exist and are present, and to be able to contextualize it, to understand where we exist in the history and in the moment as it relates not only to the past but the future.”

Yikes.  And also, what? 

This is her worst outing since last month, when she gave a speech during women’s history month, and said that she was thrilled to honor “women who made history throughout history.”  Did they do it with a high degree of historicity, you’re wondering, if you’re the snarky sort?

She’ll have you know that women are a historically under-represented group of history-making historical figures, whose actions shaped the very fabric and contours of history.  And probably time, too.

Well, at least she didn’t say “her-story,” another leftist figure of speech which makes me shudder just to type or say it.

It could have been worse, I guess.  Because Que Mala could have pulled out a white board and drawn a Venn diagram to illustrate her point: “The circle on the left side represents the past, and the circle on the right side represents the future.  And the overlapping section, right here in the middle?” 

“That’s THIS exact moment in time, which I’ve been contextualizing for you right now, here, in this moment in which we all exist.  A ha ha ha HA HA HA HA HA!”

That’s the woman who is a heartbeat away – one feeble, arrhythmic, and barely detectible heartbeat away – from being the president of the United States.

Saint John said it first, and the rest of us have said it a million times since:  Jesus wept.

Also, when it comes to being a politician, she stinketh!

Biden delenda est!

“Dr.” Jill Biden/Kathy “I’m melting! I’m melting!” Hochul, 2024!

Thank you all for your kind words and wishes about the travails that my mom and Edgar the dog experienced during our Tennessee trip.   I’m happy to report that mom is experiencing nothing worse than what feels like a minor head cold, my sis and her hubby didn’t catch the ‘rona, and Eddie is back to his “good boy” self after the vet found nothing to explain his seizure.

As I mentioned in my last column, I’ve heard a lot worse country lyrics than, “Momma’s got sick and the dog had a seizure.” 

In fact, just typing that has inspired me to try to write at least one verse of lyrics, which I am still years away from being able to put to music with my feeble newbie guitar skills. 

It’s tentatively called, “Spring 2023 Blues” –

“Momma got sick and the dog had a seizure,

Biden’s destroying our land at his leisure,

And Fox News has just tossed out our buddy Tucker,

Rupert, you low-down dim-wit mother—”

Okay, maybe I need a little more seasoning (and a little less medicinal bourbon) before turning my hand to songwriting. 

But after the amazing job CO did with “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” on his guitar at Christmastime, perhaps he can start working up an original country-flavored tune, while I try to hash out some lyrics?

(Everybody mark your calendars, because this day may be the beginning of a musical collaboration destined to produce the Lennon-McCartney of the 21st century!)

As I got settled back in at home and caught up on the news that I’d missed in Tennessee, I was struck by how much this militant transgender craziness has metastasized all over the country.  Disruptions have happened at public speeches on campuses, in schools and at parades, and even in state houses.

The latest transurrection – not to be confused with an insurrection, which is terrible beyond measure – happened in Montana, of all places.

(By the way, for those scoring at home, here’s how it works:  Guy in a horn hat walking through an empty chamber escorted by cops?  Mortal threat to democracy!  Guys dressed in Liza Minnelli dresses, Tammy Faye makeup, and late-career Liz Taylor wigs, screaming through bullhorns and jostling lawmakers?  Democracy in action!)

The action this time happened during a debate in the Montana legislature about a bill forbidding doctors from doing mutilating gender-based surgeries on children.  As it became clear that the pro “cut the kids” side was going to lose, a guy pretending to be a gal named “Zoey Zephyr” stepped up to do two things:

1. Prove the truism that even with hormone therapy and makeup, an unattractive man makes a horrifically more unattractive woman.  (See: Admiral of the Seven Seas Richard “nobody calls him Dick” (anymore) Levine)

2. Make an overwrought grab for attention like a grown-up theater kid chewing the scenery in a venue so far off Broadway that it’s practically – literally, in this case – in Montana.   

After plowing through the usual talking points, “Zooey” peaked with a hysterical accusation that anyone who votes for the bill “will have blood on their hands!”

Which is weird.  Because you know who really has literal blood on their hands in this case? 

Doctors who take a scalpel to the genitalia of children.  Which – I’m no doctor – I’m pretty sure have lots of blood vessels in them. 

Sidebar: One of the most consistent vexations of the trans activists’ rhetorical style is their evasions of clear and accurate language in favor of euphemism, obfuscation and dishonest descriptions.

In that way, they are very similar to the radical pro-choice activists in the abortion debate.  You know the examples only too well: the most prominent and profitable group dedicated to preventing parenthood is called “Planned Parenthood.”

An unborn baby – which has separate and distinct brainwaves, heartbeat and DNA from her mother – is called “the mother’s body”.  It’s also called “a tissue mass,” which is true, as far as it goes. 

I.e. in the sense that a mother, or a father, or Whoopie Goldberg, can also be called a “tissue mass.”  (In Goldberg’s case, that would be a “massive tissue mass.”) 

Or, my favorite, a “fetus.”  Abortion supporters use that term frequently – “It’s NOT a baby, it’s a fetus!” – and often with the haughtiness that medium-smart (at best) people display when they use a medical term, often because those terms come from Latin.  Which “fetus,” in fact, does.

I imagine that many pro-choicers think that “fetus” probably means something like “tissue mass,” or “tiny part of the mother’s body.”  Inconveniently for them it means… wait for it… ”offspring!”

D’oh!

Anyway, although abortion enthusiasts have had decades to develop and refine their favorite propagandistic pet phrases, the transgender enthusiasts are catching up quick.

Almost every term they use is either grossly euphemistic or else blatantly dishonest.   They invented “cis gender” to replace “normal.”  (I don’t mean that term to be insulting, but simply descriptive. As in, “Humans normally have two eyes through which they are able to see.”  As opposed to, “Some people are blind, while others are cis sighted.”) 

They use “gender affirming” to describe actions that deny gender.  

Consider constant calls to give “transgender kids the medical care they deserve.” 

The kids aren’t “transgender,” since no one can in reality change their gender; they are either suffering from a mental illness called gender dysmorphia or – much more commonly – either driven by a social contagion, or being abused by unstable parents riddled with Munchausen-by-proxy narcissism. 

And giving kids irreversible drugs and hormones to stop their normal physical development (while also sterilizing them and causing a raft of pernicious and often life-long side effects) cannot in a sane society be called “care.” 

Not to mention the horrific, Frankensteinian surgeries.  To castrate a young male and then surgically flay his penis in an attempt to use it to create a non-functional pseudo vagina is NOT “medical care that they deserve.”  In fact, that is not medical care that ANYONE deserves.

Oh, wait.  I forgot about serial rapists.  Castration and penis flaying sounds about right for those predators. 

So I stand corrected. 

The Zephyr story has an extra layer of confusion. Because “Zoey” is a guy who poses as a girl, and has a “girlfriend” named Erin Reed, who is also a guy posing as a girl.  (I know what you’re thinking: bricklayer? Heavy equipment operator? Nope: Erin is a journalist/activist/content creator.  What are the odds?)  

So they are either two gay guys with autogynephilia in a gay relationship, or two biological males in a… I guess… lesbian relationship, somehow?

(I miss Archie Bunker: “And you knew who you were then/ Goils were goils and men were men.”)

And not to get off track, but in addition to all of the other insanity associated with radical transgender activists, why do they always have to pick such bizarre new names for themselves?  

“Zooey Zephyr?”

If you ever start reading a column of mine in which I proclaim that I no longer want to be referred to as a humble Roving Correspondent, or a hilarious genius, or even Marticus – all of which are totally normal, and pleasing to the ear as well – and then ask you to address me as Zippity Bop Delecto, you should stop what you’re doing immediately.

And then begin what I hope would be a nationwide prayer and email chain in the hopes of confirming that I have not flayed my magnificent genitalia, and am not looking for a gig pushing Bud Light or a prime-time slot at CNN.

Okay, maybe “magnificent” is a bit over the top. 

Or is it?

Perhaps I’ve said too much. 

And just when you think that nothing can top the incomprehensibility of our subcultural sexual confusion, yet another major institution takes the lead in the competition for “most idiotic inability to understand your own core purpose.”

First Bud Light went full tranny.  Then Fox News fired their best and most popular host in Tucker Carlson.  (He was a ratings juggernaut!  As opposed to Don Lemon.  Who was a ratings naught.)

But not since the NFL started dressing their players in pink and prattling on about breast cancer and America’s rottenness has another institution that relies on recruiting males you think of as toxic gone as stupid as the example I’m about to bring up.

And by the way, yes, the 15-year-old push to “woke up” pro football still sticks in my craw! 

If I can speak for the mostly male fan base of the NFL – and I think that I can – we were raised to stand up and put a hand over our hearts when the anthem is played.  I know that that makes us hicks and rubes in your eyes.  Yet somehow we can still sleep at night. 

And you don’t have to coach us up to appreciate breasts, you idiots.  We’re already big fans! 

Also, let me save you some money before you can come up with any future campaigns to lecture us about the virtues of apple pie, pick-up trucks. or the rear ends of women.  We’re way ahead of you! 

We’re also perfectly comfortable with taking the controversial “anti-“ position when it comes to both cancer and racism.

But we’re never going to hate our country or believe that it’s anywhere near as racist as the white leftists on Martha’s Vineyard or the members of the Congressional black caucus are.  So stop trying to “educate” us and focus on God’s favorite game, dammit!

Where was I?

Oh yeah.  Stupid marketing campaigns.

I give you: the drag queen Navy recruiter!

I know.  That sounds like a 1970s set-up for a joke lobbed to Charles Nelson Reilly or Paul Lynde on Match Game. 

But it’s 2023, and what once was satire is now reality.

The oddball in question is an actual sailor who goes by the drag name “Harpy Daniels.”  He seems to not be a gender dysmorphic person, but just a gay guy who likes to dress up like a woman and sail around the world’s oceans for months at a time in close proximity to hundreds of young, physically fit men.

What could go wrong?

Can anyone remember way back to when the purpose of the military was to kill people and break things? 

If I can engage my Sam Kinison filter for just a moment…

[begin Kinison] “You know what kind of things we traditionally sent our military to break?  Al Qaeda ammo dumps.  Battered Toyotas full of ISIS freaks carrying AK-47s.  Jihadi jaws, femurs and spirits.  

NOT FAKE FINGERNAILS AND HIGH HEELS!!  OH!  OHHHHH!!!!” [end Kinison]

The story covering this mind-numbingly stupid recruitment plan notes that, “Despite their efforts, Navy officials [are] projected to miss their goal for enlisted sailors by 8,000 recruits.”

The hell you say!

I think the bad-ass Navy Seal who shot smelly goat-ravager and terrorist Osama Bin Laden said it best in his tweet on this abomination: “Alright. The U.S. Navy is now using an enlisted sailor Drag Queen as a recruiter. I’m done. China is going to destroy us. YOU GOT THIS NAVY. I can’t believe I fought for this bullsh**.”

Winston Churchill is said to have derisively described the traditions of the Royal Navy as “Rum, sodomy and the lash.” 

So I guess the US Navy has their new recruiting slogan for 2023:

“Hold the rum.”

Not to be confused with the conservative slogan for 2024:

Biden delenda est!

“Dr.” Jill Biden/Zippity Zappity Zephyr, 2024!

April certainly ended with a bang for me.

In case you missed a previous column, I’ve been in TN for the last week with my wife and Wonder Dog, spending time with my octogenarian mom while my sister and her husband were enjoying a well-deserved vacation.

When my wife came down with covid on Monday, she tried to stay rested and separated as much as possible from mom and I.  Still, we had a good week and a great visit, with me driving mom around to various nice areas of town, taking walks and having some good conversations. 

I drove her past the previous two houses she’s lived in, and although she didn’t remember the houses when I described them, she remembered the names of the streets they are on, and she remembered the houses themselves when we drove by.  In the evenings we watched some old family videos that my sister recently had converted from old videotapes into electronic copies.

We watched a lot of past Christmases, some birthdays and celebrations with my daughters when everyone was a lot younger and skinnier, and some family gatherings with my mom and dad’s siblings, most of whom are gone now.

We also saw a lot of videos of my dad, and I was happy to recognize how happy those made mom.  I’d feared that seeing dad – who passed in 2014 – would be tough on her, but it was quite the opposite.  And as with many who have Alzheimer’s, mom’s memory of those days from decades past were much clearer and more accurate than her memories of very recent events.

It was a great time, and since my sister and her husband got back home today, Karen and I will drive back to Florida tomorrow.

On the downside, my mom caught covid, and one of my sister’s dogs had a really frightening seizure last night!

Sadly, I am not making that up.  And yes, I recognize that “momma got sick and the dog had a seizure” sounds like a very bad country music title.

Mom is doing very well so far, with the only real symptoms being a super-stuffed-up head and a bit of fatigue.  Since she had covid last year and recovered pretty quickly, we’re hoping for the same this time.

Edgar the dog seems to be doing well, too.  My sister spoke to a 24-hour vet and my wife looked at info on dog seizures on the internet.  (I know: if you can’t trust pet health info you find on the internet, what can you trust?)  The seizure looked very violent and freaked everyone out, but it only lasted a minute, after which Eddie quickly bounced back. 

My brother-in-law is taking her to their regular vet this morning, and we are hoping for the best.    

So after all that, this will be a shorter than usual column, focusing on two good-news stories.

First in Portland, OR – a town that has produced very few positive stories as of late – the far-left administration of Portland State University showed that (all recent evidence to the contrary) they are not completely ineducable.  

You may remember that just last week, city officials in San Francisco voted to rescind their idiotic, self-defeating ban on dealing with yucky conservative states who don’t favor voting fraud, and abortion in the third trimester.  Well now, PSU’s leaders similarly reversed themselves, dumping a policy passed in the wake of the 2020 George Floyd riots – er, “peaceful protests with just a dusting of arson and other felonies” – that disarmed campus police.

 A campus cop spokesman at the time said, “We can do an effective job without weapons.  I know [campus police are] talented to do their jobs without the use of a weapon.”

I’m not making that up.  I guess the idea was to meet any violent criminals who posed a danger to the students with a potent combination of harsh language and scowls of disapproval.

You won’t be surprised to hear that the MSM reporting on this story were shocked – shocked, I tells ya! – at what happened next: “But then crime increased three years in a row across Portland. The city smashed its previous homicide record in 2021 and again last year. Many businesses have fled the city due to repeated burglaries and vandalism.”

I love the way that quote starts: with a “but.” 

Anybody with any common sense and a basic grasp of how conjunctions work would know that that sentence needs to start with the “cause-and-effect” relationship indicated by a “so” or a “thus” – “We disarmed the cops, SO crime rates exploded.” – not a “but,” or a “however,” or even a “who’d a thunk it?”

My favorite part is that the poor spokes-dope who bragged in 2020 about how cops didn’t need to carry weapons to do their job was the same one who had to announce the humiliating about-face:  “Recently, our officers encountered individuals on campus with weapons.  This has made me make the hard decision to have more armed patrols on campus.”

Listen.  Do you hear that?   It’s the sound of millions of normal Americans slapping their foreheads with their palms.

I guess PSU expected that their cops were only going to be called to dorm-room bull sessions on philosophical questions that got a little too heated, or maybe some pillow fights in sorority houses.  Instead, criminals did what criminals do… and that caught the big brains at PSU totally by surprise.

Great job, Sherlock!

Speaking of happy endings to crime stories, I don’t know if you caught the tale of Matvey Klimenko, 38, a resident of Jacksonville, Florida.  On April 12^th, Klimenko armed himself with a knife and broke into his ex-girlfriend’s house and threatened to kill her.

“Hey Martin,” you’re not saying, because you know better, “Klimenko was probably a hard-working taxpayer with a clean record and a long history of treating women respectfully, wasn’t he?”

Prepare to be shocked: ol’ Matvey K seemed to have gone pro in the lucrative field of being a career criminal and recidivist piece of s**t.  He had a long rap sheet, including multiple domestic violence charges.  Several women – including his mom and sister! — had filed restraining orders against him.

In fact, cops say that he had previously “harassed and stalked his ex-girlfriend, threatened to kill her and held her at both gun and knife point.”  When she moved to get away from him, he managed to find her at her new address.

She was able to barricade herself in a bathroom and call the cops.  And because Jacksonville isn’t in CA, IL or NY, he was not immediately released on his own recognizance and given a key to the city and an apology for the inconvenience.

Instead, a SWAT team and hostage negotiator showed up, and spent several hours trying to reason with Klimenko.  He managed to flee from the house, and when officers spotted him, they pursued him, firing less-than-lethal rounds at him.  (I would prefer they use more-than-lethal rounds, but I would also settle for just-enough-to-be-lethal rounds.)

They also used a tactic that is dear to my heart: they released a police dog on him.  K9 officer Zeke went after him like a fur missile, cornering him between two houses, and going for his legs.  Klimenko managed to get hold of Zeke’s vest with one hand, and raised his knife in the other.

That’s when Zeke’s handler yelled, “Don’t let him stab him, don’t let him stab him!”  (You can see the whole thing on a video released by the Jax PD.)  

After a few commands to drop the knife, SWAT team members shot the evil thug in my favorite way for criminals to get shot:

Repeatedly!

To re-cap: Klimenko crushed it at the “room temperature challenge,” his ex has been sleeping well for the first time in a long time, and Florida is a safer place today.

Oh, and who’s a good boy?

ZEKE! 

Biden delenda est!

“Dr.” Jill Biden/Portland State Police Chief Barney Fife, 2024!

Thanks to all of you who sent good wishes for my wife’s bouncing back from covid, which is well underway.  Today she felt back to about 60% of full strength, which is markedly better than the last several days. 

In addition to my wife being on the mend, I’m feeling some excitement for the same reason I imagine many of you are:

It’s SatanCon eve!

As I write this late on Thursday night, all over Boston parents are helping their little ones put out the gender non-binary gingerbread people and soy milk for Krampus, before tucking them into bed, with visions of forked tails and pitchforks dancing in their heads.  

Soon they’ll be asleep but still restless, as they dream of fat guys in goat-skin pants and useless N-95 masks painted like skulls, and crazy Sam Brinton, for some reason – garish lipstick smeared over his mouth and bald head – laughing maniacally and running through an airport dragging stolen suitcases behind him as he dashes off to a staff meeting at his influential job in the Brandon administration.

Um… it’s possible that I’ve somehow caught my wife’s fevered hallucinations of the last few days.

Speaking of which, close proximity to illness has made me think about the state of our nation, which reminds me of someone with a threatening, gangrene-like infection.  And right now, it seems like there are roughly the same number of troubling symptoms as there is evidence of encouraging antibodies being created and marshalled to counter-attack the illness.

On the encouraging, anti-body-creating side of the ledger, we have sites like this one, along with networks of like-minded people – sites like the Daily Wire and the Babylon Bee, conservative podcasters, some media figures like Gutfeld and Jordan Peterson and Tucker (wherever he lands), educational institutions and sites like Hillsdale, Prager U and etc.    

We also still have entrepreneurial eccentrics like Elon Musk, with his can-do, optimistic spirit.  Last week, his experimental Space X starship successfully launched, but soon developed problems in flight and had to be blown up.  This experience prompted one of the greatest euphemisms in history from Musk: the craft “experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly.”

In other contexts, that verbiage could be putting a brave face on an unmitigated disaster.  As in, “Since Biden took office, America’s economy, border and international reputation have all experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly.  Run for your lives!”

But not for Musk, who is such a cautious optimist that he was a South Afri-Can (not a South Afri-can’t) before he became an Ameri-can.  He was sanguine after the “disassembly.”  He noted that all experiments provide useful data, and tweeted: “Learned a lot for next test launch in a few months.”

Another encouraging metaphorical antibody story comes from usually gangrenous San Francisco (metaphorically, but also often literally speaking), where in 2016 the city’s board of supervisors took time away from their busy schedule of not noticing that a rising tide of human feces and dirty syringes was slowly burying their streets to enact an idiotic law.

The law forced a boycott of 30 states who had the audacity to pass laws on various subjects – abortion, gay marriage, preventing fraudulent voting – that the SF overlords disagreed with. 

You don’t see this kind of arrogance in conservative places.  We like paying lower taxes, exercising our 2^nd amendment rights, and empowering cops to arrest and jail criminals, for example.  

But hey, if Californians want to pay more than half of their earnings to the government, or New Yorkers and Chicagoans want to be disarmed when thugs attack them, and then to be sure that those thugs are not inconvenienced by police, we say, “You do you, lefty masochists!”

But SF lefties, in their wisdom, decided that they’d bring those benighted 60% of states to their knees, by depriving them of the privilege of doing business with San Francisco.

So why is this a good-news, social-antibody kind of story? 

Because it turns out that when your chief exports are the aforementioned human waste and filthy syringes, withholding that bounty from other states doesn’t give you the amount of leverage that you expected.

Fast forward to last week, when SF officials voted to repeal the boycott law. 

They did this after producing a report that showed several hilariously unintended consequences of their “let us run your lives, deplorables” boycott.  For one, no other state made any attempt to change their own laws in response to the city’s narcissistic a-holery. 

For another, connected San Franciscans had gotten exemptions and waivers to do business with the states on the naughty list, to the tune of $791 million of purchases in a single year.

And the schadenfreude salt in their self-inflicted wound?  It cost the totalitarian twits $475,000 in staffing expenses to enforce their failed experiment in dictating to other American states.

Some positive pushback is also happening on the gender-dysphoria/transgender-mania issue.  Several sporting bodies have ruled that competitors have to stay in their own biological lane.  Anheuser-Busch is losing billions because of their Bud Light/ Dylan Mulvaney idiocy, and legislation is being passed in many states to criminalize gender “affirming” (i.e. denying) surgeries on children.   

More evidence is also coming out that refutes the rationale for such traumatic surgeries.  (Although the idea that we’ve taken it this seriously for this long is already evidence of the extent of the disease’s progress.) 

One example is an article in PJ Media with the succinct title, “Study Shows Mothers of Boys With Gender Issues Are Mental.”  It details a study from 1991 which has recently gained attention, and it’s the kind of study that documents what should have been obvious to everyone without any such study: “The mothers of gender dysphoric boys tend to suffer from a host of mental illnesses of their own.”

You can read the story, and the details are chilling.  One top-line finding is that mothers of the kind of gender-confused boys who would now be wrongly diagnosed as “trans” and shoved onto the castration conveyer belt (worst Lucy episode ever, by the way) are 9 times more likely to meet the criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder than moms of “normal” boys.

I can only hope that as more evidence continues to come out, we’ll be giving way more scrutiny to the unstable, ideology-driven Munchausen-by-proxy parents who are behind so much of the torment caused by the trans explosion.  

Unfortunately, the news about the health of our body politic is far from uniformly rosy.  Our higher education system, for example, is way too often still a source of cultural pathology. 

A recent example comes from UNC, where almost 700 professors signed a public letter opposing a bill requiring students to take courses on our government and founding documents.  They object to students being forced to read documents like the Federalist Papers or the Gettysburg Address, because doing so “substitutes ideological force-feeding for the intellectual expertise of faculty.”

Although too many professors’ “intellectual expertise” too often amounts to teaching their own CRT and Marxist “ideological force-feeding,” you can understand why anyone might resist the state scrutinizing how they do their job. 

In fact, another set of government employees – cops – also initially resisted scrutiny of their work, in the form of required body-worn cameras.  But we have rightly decided – and I think most police departments now agree – that since they are public employees doing a critical job, state scrutiny is justified. 

Since properly educating our nation’s citizens is as important as policing our streets, I think we should supplement requirements to teach our nation’s history and foundational documents with laws requiring professors to wear body-cams – accessible to the taxpayers who employ them – in the classroom. 

Most of the time, cops’ body cams exonerate them of accusations from criminals, although they also do incriminate bad cops sometimes.  I’m guessing that those results would be reversed in “prof-cam” cases: more would be caught teaching left-biased quasi-propaganda than an accurate depiction of our nation’s virtues and flaws.   

(And how fun would it be to watch a cable show with the theme song, “Bad profs, bad profs, whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do when your woke b.s. outs you?”)

One final area of our social gangrene can be found in the media.  Examples abound, but a particularly great one was a piece this Wednesday from NYT propagandist David Leonhardt.

Faced with Biden’s manifest incapacity, our MSM has gone into full Pravda mode, covering for Joey Gaffes and publishing a thousand variations on the same “don’t believe your lyin’ eyes” story.  But now that he is visibly deteriorating day by day, the lefty propagandists need to step up their game. 

Enter Davey Leonhardt, and his article, which argues – and I swear I am not making this up, “Strange as it may sound, the American government can function without a healthy president.”

Is that not perfect? 

First the MSM told us that Biden is fine, and that he wasn’t hiding in his basement, and that he’s got the energy and smarts of a much younger man.  Then they said, “Okay, he’s calling a lid on some days at noon.  Make that 10.  And he’d love to talk to you, but he’s at his beach house for the 6^th weekend in a row.” 

Then they said, “Okay, so maybe he can’t make it up a mobile airport staircase.  And he sometimes shakes hands with ghosts.  But he didn’t poop on the Pope.”  Then, “Okay, he may have pooped in the general vicinity of the Pope, but he’s fine.  He’s doing a great job.”

And now that his physical and mental decomposition is obvious, Leonhardt brings us the convenient news that our country can work just fine without a healthy president.  He cites several examples that don’t help as much as he thinks they do.      

He cites FDR as a president who had physical challenges but performed well… but FDR died when he was 17 years younger than Biden is now!  Leonhardt also mentions that when he was ill, FDR was surrounded by “aides, Cabinet secretaries and military leaders” who “performed well” when the big guy wasn’t at his best.

Whereas Brandon is surrounded by Que Mala, Mayor Pete, Merrick Garland, Hakeem Jeffries, et al. 

Not exactly the caliber of people who could win a world war.  Or even the card game “War.”  (Not to mention a battle of wits, for which they are all totally unarmed.)

Leonhardt also cited Reagan, who eventually died with Alzheimer’s.

On the other hand, Reagan was just shy of 78 when he left office after 8 years, which is younger than Biden when he was inaugurated.  Also, Reagan was a great president who did not have a preternatural ability to turn everything he touched into crap. 

And on his worst day during his early 90s, Reagan was more cogent than Biden has been on any given weekday of his presidency so far.

On second thought, maybe the better analogy for our nation’s current struggles is to the aftermath of a stroke: one side of our body is relatively unscathed and functioning relatively normally (let’s call it the red-states side), but the other side has been devastated: partially paralyzed and rapidly atrophying.   

I’m not sure what this might mean for our future, because you can’t amputate half of a ravaged body.  But maybe the effects are still contained enough that a curative amputation is possible?

Regardless of the eventual best-case-scenario outcome, one thing is clear…

Biden delenda est!

“Dr.” Jill Biden/ David “Baghdad Bob“ Leonhardt, 2024!

So my wife and I made it up to Tennessee late Saturday just fine, and our visit got off to a good start.  We both spent our first day with mom at home, and there was a lot of conversation, and a lot of laughter.  

Sure, Karen and I had to repeat ourselves pretty often, and answer the same questions multiple times.  But that’s not much to ask for, from the woman who gave you life.

Especially since I spent a career teaching college kids who required me to repeat things just as often, and asked just as many redundant questions, with no excuse nearly as good as, “I’ve got Alzheimer’s.” 

Plus my mom never complained about a manifestly fair grade, gave me her designated pronouns, or went off and voted for lefties who are making everything worse.

When we took a short drive around town, she repeatedly muttered, “I just wish so many new people would stop coming here.”  Her Tennessee town is experiencing the kind of growing pains being felt by many red states, dealing with an influx of refugees from blue cities and states.

What had recently been gently rolling hills and farms, woods and meadows are being supplanted by houses, individually or in small developments.  Traffic is getting worse.  Prices are going up.  Tennessee is feeling growing pains, because it is a welcoming and flourishing place.  (Not unlike Florida, in fact.)

With my tongue firmly in cheek, I reminded her that she and dad came down here from Illinois 15 years ago, so they were part of the invading yankee hordes.  But she is undaunted.  She argues that her new home state should have started restricting the inflow shortly after she and dad arrived, her tongue also in cheek.

Annnnnddddd… then my wife got covid.

She started feeling bad yesterday afternoon, and finally took a test that came up positive late in the evening.  She’s had the vax and a booster, but spoiler alert: you know.  A doc she works with in FL had a Paxlovid script sent to a local pharmacist, and I picked it up for her, and she started on it today.

I’m not so worried about her – she’s otherwise in good shape and pure of heart, and enveloped in the health-restoring (and probably anti-viral) love of her husband – but I’m not thrilled that we happen to be here with my 84-year-old mom.

On the other hand, mom has been vaxed and boosted (spoiler alert: you know, again), and actually had covid last year, and came through like an octogenarian champ.  She’s certainly in better shape than a certain stumblebum who recently went to Ireland (and got barked at by dogs and laughed at by humans) whom I could mention.

On yet a third hand, that comparison is cold comfort at best.   “In better shape than Joe Biden” sounds like a cruel joke.  (Like “better preserved than Imhotep Pelosi.”  Or “smarter than Schiff.”  Or “better smelling than Swalwell.”)

Anyway, I’ve been a bit distracted. 

Then I pull out the laptop today and find out that we won’t have Don Lemon to kick around anymore, and that Tucker Carlson got fired.

The former story is worthy of nothing more than a hearty laugh, and a cheerful goodbye to one of the exemplars of the specific type of racist and sexist narcissists who seem to breed in the fetid swamps of leftist media.  (See: the talentless ladies of the View, the hacky hosts of late-night “comedy” shows, Fredo Cuomo, dishonest giant-human-thumb-impersonator Brian Stelter, etc.)

But the Carlson firing really caught me by surprise.  I share CO’s feelings about this decision, and I can see from the CO site this evening that many around here feel the same way.

In many ways, getting rid of Carlson is the polar opposite of kicking Don Lemon to the curb.  Carlson actually has talent, intelligence and ability, and a willingness to argue for unorthodox positions that he really believes in.

His exposure of some parts of the January 6^th videos was a service to the nation, and his openness to those on the other side of the political aisle – e.g. RFK Jr., Tim Robbins, or Sean Penn – is extremely rare in media. 

And his odd laugh aside, his gift for mockery and humor made for a lot of must-see segments.  His montage of Democrats adopting hideously inauthentic and pandering accents, to cite one recent example, was worth savoring. 

From Hillary doing an egregious audio equivalent of a “black-face” version of a spiritual in front of a southern black audience (“Ah ain’t no-ways tie-uhd…”), to AOC’s offensive “Jenny from the barrio” take on her brief flirtation with an actually useful service job (“ain’t nothin’ wrong with serving people’s foooood”), to Black-Panther-cosplaying “Tennessee Three” member Justin Pearson’s laughable transition from a button-down nerd doing white face at Bowdoin to a big-afroed southern preacher with the MLK delivery and the Malcolm X glasses, Carlson sliced and diced those phonies with great elan.        

(If no one has called Jones’ act “Dr. Urkel and Mr. X” yet, let me be the first.)    

In addition, Carlson has made all the right enemies.  Lefty dullards throughout Congress, the White House, and the MSM were crowing over Carlson’s ouster today.  They think that they’ve been able to cancel him, as they so fervently want to do to every persuasive voice who disagrees with their pinched and dysfunctional ideology.  

But I think they’ve misjudged him, and the finality of their victory.

The reason most of the timid souls in the MSM have to live in fear of being cancelled is that they have no actual talent, nothing that sets them apart from the woke crowd.   If a bland teleprompter-reader like Matt Lauer or Charley Rose gets caught with his pants down, he can be easily replaced.

When Andrew Cuomo’s bad acts became too embarrassing, a similarly soul-less empty pantsuit Dem like Hochul was waiting in the wings.  When Fredo went down, and then Stelter, and now Lemon, they are un-missed and un-mourned.

They are a dime a dozen, and anyone willing to sell their soul for a little camera time can fill their shoes.  (That reminds me: SatanCon ’23 tickets are still available.  Rumors that Don Lemon and KJP are going to be surprise panelists representing the hoary underworld – or Hunter Biden, representing the whore-y underworld, for that matter – are as yet unconfirmed.)  

By contrast, people with real talent who bring something to the table (whether you like them or not) are uncancel-able.  Dave Chappel and Louis CK are very funny, so they’re still around.  Joe Rogan, Adam Carolla, Jordan Peterson  and Dennis Prager have each earned huge audiences, so they’re still here.

Tucker Carlson is one of those types.  He’s going to land on his feet, and will soon once again (God willing) be a thorn in the side of the purveyors of “lying, pomposity, smugness and group think.”

The most striking detail of the Carlson story today: when news got out that he’d been fired, Fox’s value plunged by $1 billion dollars.

Coincidentally, one of the goals on my own personal bucket list is that one day, my own firing will be the cause of a billion-dollar loss to my employer. 

Sure, I’m not too close yet, because in the unthinkable, cataclysmic event that CO were to fire me from this site, I don’t think the hit to the net worth of CO nation would total more than $100 million, tops. 

But in the words of the great Dennis Miller, I’m just a young guy with a dream.

Speaking of which…

Biden delenda est!

“Dr.” Jill Biden/Reverend Dr. Urkel “X” Kendi, Jr., 2024!

After two columns this week on the fraught Trump v. DeSantis conflict, I’m back to discuss other stories that I came across earlier but didn’t have time to discuss until now.

First, though, a personal note.  My wife and I are going up to TN for a week-long visit with my mom tomorrow.  Regular readers may remember that mom is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, and she lives with my sister and her husband.  They are going on a vacation, so my better half and I get to spend some quality time with mom. 

Karen is going to Zoom in to work from up there, and we’ll still have time to take mom on some day trips to a few of the small towns around Nashville.  Cassie the Wonder Dog will also get to frolic with her dog cousins Eddy and Raven.  (My sister is an Edgar Allan Poe fan, as you might have guessed.)

While up there I’m going to continue working on two of my retirement bucket list items: learning some conversational German, and how to play the guitar.  I got an acoustic guitar as an early birthday present last week, but I’m making progress mostly on the “developing calloused fingers” front so far. 

With any luck, in a year or two I’ll be able to back up the adorable Nena on an American tour, bringing my mediocre singing voice, sub-par German skills, and execrable guitar playing to the table.  Then, after I’m fired at the end of the first song, I’ll still be able to check off another bucket-list item.

But I’ll not let any of these worthy activities make me miss writing my two weekly columns here at Cautious Optimism.  Because: priorities.

Now, on to a few nuggets from the news over the last month or so that I noted but didn’t get around to commenting on:

Virginia’s solid Lt. Governor Winsome Sears appeared on Bill Maher’s show a few weeks ago, and she knocked it out of the park.  She was witty and combative, pummeling Ken Doll Newsom, and deftly defending 2^nd amendment rights. 

She noted that women and law-abiding black people are two groups who are pursuing gun ownership most quickly, and she said, “If you’re breaking into my home, while I’m waiting for the police to come, I’m gonna shoot you….  I’m gonna pray for you, but I’m gonna shoot you.” 

She got repeated applause from the audience – usually they are of the trained seal variety when it comes to leftist talking points – and got Maher to admit that calls for gun bans are foolish.  Her performance on his show illustrated why most lefty programs won’t allow any conservatives on, unless it’s to ambush them with dirty tricks or shout them down.

(Maher is the smartest and fairest of the leftist talk show hosts. I know: that’s like saying “the tallest building in Campbellsville, Kentucky.”  But still, credit where credit is due.)

Sears would make a great VP pick, if she wasn’t ineligible because she was born in Jamaica before her family legally immigrated when she was 6.   She’s got an amazing first name, and she’s actually smart and competent. 

It would be great fun to watch the Dems reveal their bone-deep sexism and racism (for the 1,000th time) if she ran.   For them, no woman who bucks the gender feminist party line is an authentic woman, and no conservative black person who won’t go onto the Dems’ ideological plantation is really black.

I’d love to watch a clot of Dems and MSM talking heads arguing that Dylan Mulvaney, Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner, and Richard “Dick”/Rachel Levine are all women, but Winsome isn’t. 

And that Liz Warren (#wemustneverstopmockingher) is Indian and Rachel Dolezal is black, but Winsome Sears (just like Clarence Thomas and Tim Scott) isn’t.  

Man, we are about to see an Old Testament, reap-what-you-sow, Sodom and Gomorrah-style beat-down descending on the benighted city of Chicago.  After the ruinous reign of weapons-grade-stupid Lori Lightfoot, only 38% of Chicago’s voters showed up in a run-off election.  So they got mayor elect Brandon Johnson, who before he is even officially in office, is already picking up right where the fright-wigged one left off.

Over the weekend, hundreds of “youths” rampaged through the Loop in an orgy of violence, terror, and property destruction. 

(By the way, if at least 3% of those in the mob had been white, the MSM would have screamed about the “white supremacist violence.”  But because the MSM called them “youths,” you don’t need to get out your “leftist-speak decoder ring” to find out what uncomfortable truth is being unsuccessfully evaded.)  

This is the kind of failure of government that, if left unchecked, will doom a city, so this was a time that required the new mayor-elect to step up to the plate and show that he wasn’t going to be Lightfoot redux. 

Unfortunately for once-great Chicago (RIP), this Brandon proved to be as inept as our other Brandon.  In a softball interview, a sympathetic news lady desperately tried to steer Johnson into saying the minimum necessary words: I condemn this violence.

But as the old saying goes, “you can lead a radical left apparatchik to water, but you can’t make him think.”

Three times the MSM lady said, “You don’t condone the violence, though…?”  And three times, Brandon refused the lifeline, and spewed a bunch of “commie gobbledygook” (boy do I miss Norm MacDonald!) and misdirection.

Finally he was exasperated enough to let slip some of the reliable old class-warfare, to the effect of, “I don’t condone when big corporations come in and take tax dollars from citizens just to get a profit.”

Got that?  Running a business that gets customers to exchange money for your goods or services voluntarily, thus funding your city government – and earning an evil profit! – is worse than going on a feral, destructive rampage.

By the time he put out a statement the next day, Brandon demonstrated the old adage that when it comes to public statements, “everything that comes before the ‘but’ is meaningless.”   

As in, “I’m a pacifist, and never intended to hurt anybody… but I did massacre all of those nuns.”  Or

“Dad tells me I’m the smartest person he’s ever met… but I did record all of that ‘Caligula in a den full of crack whores’ stuff on my laptop.”

Brandon opens with 2 brief sentences of rhetorical throat-clearing: “In no way do I condone the destructive activity we saw in the Loop and lakefront this weekend.  It is unacceptable and has no place in our city.”

But then: “However… it is not constructive to demonize youth who have otherwise been starved of opportunities…” followed by 57 words of blaming everybody but the bad guys.    

Watching the video of that mindless, anarchic violence, I was reminded of one of my favorite Shakespeare lines from The Tempest: “Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.”

By the way, if someone putting dark make-up on is doing “black-face,” and Dylan Mulvaney is doing “woman-face,” can’t we say that when he doubles down on Lightfoot’s racist, ideological idiocy, Brandon Johnson is now doing “carp-face?”

Asking for a friend.  (Who got out of Chicago and down to Boca Raton just in the nick of time!) 

Speaking of hell being empty, and all the devils being here…

(that’s what we in the professional writing biz call a top-shelf transition)

Hey, if you’re like me, you probably won’t make it to SatanCon 2023, which I swear I am not making up, and which will take place in Boston next weekend. 

I’ve got the same reason for skipping it that you probably do: it’s just not the same as the SatanCons of my childhood, because it’s been ruined by all the commercialism!

But for those who are going, you can rest assured that the brilliant minds running SatanCon have got your best interests at heart.  Because nobody is going to be allowed into the events – including the totally not made-up “Satanic Marketplace” (or as you may know it, the Democrat National Committee) – unless they are fully vaxxed and masked! 

Naturally.  Because one of the Satanists’ 10 commandments is a total devotion to capital “S” Science. 

And nothing just screams “SCIENCE” like a fat guy with facial piercings and dark eye shadow struggling to get into a set of goat-skin chaps and explaining that as soon as he can get the outfit and his ram’s head mask on, he’s going to ritually defile you from behind, before cutting your throat and dismembering you on a stone altar dedicated to Lucifer.

But don’t worry: he’ll have an N-95 on under the ram’s head the entire time! 

Speaking of defiling yourself from behind…

(Man, that is two world-class transitions in a row!)

Actress, health nut, and leftist goofball Gwyneth Paltrow was asked by an interviewer last month to describe what was the “weirdest wellness thing that you’ve done.”

And she went for it!

Quoth Gwyneth: “I mean, I have… used ozone therapy… rectally.”

Because I am AT LEAST as much of a Man of Science as the next guy in a set of ass-less goat skin chaps and fogged-up glasses wearing an N-95 under a ram’s head mask, I immediately started wondering how in the world administering ozone can be healthy or therapeutic.  I also racked my brain to remember what role ozone plays in our troposphere. 

And then, because I am basically a child trapped in a man’s body, I quickly brainstormed several hilarious jokes involving the ozone hole.  (Which, if I remember correctly, was all the rage amongst the big brains on tv in the 80s and 90s, and had almost nothing to do with a young Gwyneth Paltrow.)

And then, because I am both a child trapped in a man’s body and an astute political commentator, I realized that Gwyneth Paltrow is attending to her health in the same way that Joe Biden and the Democrats are ruling our country:

Rectally.   

I can’t think of a better way to “end” this column. (HA!)

Other than…

Biden delenda est!

“Dr.” Jill Biden/Paltrow’s Proctologist 2024!

Before I conclude my thoughts on this contentious topic, I’ve got to compliment the Cautious Optimism community here.

I’ve seen some pretty heated discussions on this topic, and I thought that my first piece would likely bring out some rhetorical rough elbows.  That would be a good and healthy part of the process overall, but I would always prefer that we treat each other with the camaraderie and good humor that this site is known for.

And boy, did you all come through!

More people agreed with me than I had expected to – we’ll all support the eventual nominee, but there’s a lot of conflicting thoughts out there – and even the solid Trumpsters and the uncommitted showed the class and wit rarely seen on political sites. 

My favorite response might have been from the inestimable Don Deere: “Excellent piece as always.  Having said that… #TRUMP2024!”  

That’s the spirit!

As we left off yesterday, I was saying that we conservatives need to be careful about attacks on each other, and save our heaviest fire for the Bidenistas who are damaging our country…

DeSantis has been very slow to attack Trump, which is very smart/Machiavellian: it’s hard to win a slugfest with Trump, and the process gets mud on you too, and RDS will need as many Trump fans as possible to stick with him if he can win the nomination. 

So it’s in his best interest to try to stay above the fray for as long as he can, and then to respond to Trump’s jabs judiciously, with a “more in sorrow than in anger” posture, as the saying goes.   

Trump’s attacks on DeSantis, on the other hand, would also benefit from being less personal and more substantive.  As it is, they’ve too often been personal, petty, and – worse yet – obviously false, and/or leftist talking points.

When Trump found old pics of DeSantis with a couple of young women from a class he taught, Trump turned that into perving on underage girls, then to grooming and infidelity, and possibly even pedophilia!

When he attacked RDS’s record in FL, he just sounded silly.  He claimed that Charlie Crist was a better governor than RDS, thus causing 500,000 spit-takes from Floridians.  (Crist is a turncoat ex-Republican who became and Independent and lost, then became a Dem and lost again.  The guy’s picture is next to RINO in the dictionary.)

He even bashed RDS for opening FL too soon during Covid.  (This repeats the discredited Dem label of “Death-Santis.”)  But Trump is on record several times since then, praising DeSantis’ handling of covid.  Besides which, this is 2023, and NOBODY thinks DeSantis opened FL too soon anymore!

He also claimed that Florida has always done well because of the sun and water and beautiful beaches, rather than because of DeSantis. 

But you don’t have to be a FL resident to know that it’s been sunny here since the end of the last Ice Age, whereas GOP governors didn’t start winning elections by 19 points until the end of last fall.

And it’s really aggravating when Trump uses leftist leftist talking points!  The old “he wants to cut medicare and social security” canard has been a cliched Dem scare line for my entire life, and I winced when Trump used it. 

The fact is that both programs are going broke if they aren’t fixed, and the necessary job of eventually taking that on (I give the Bushie and RINO Paul Ryan credit for even trying) is only made more difficult if our guys are giving aid and comfort to the lying leftists who have mendaciously clubbed us with that attack for decades!

If I could write for Trump, I’d create a still Trumpy but higher-road approach:

“Ron’s done a very good job in Florida.  If you’ll remember, I helped put him over the top in his first, tight race in 2018.  I endorsed him and campaigned with him, and we got him to the finish line together.

Then he governed the way I’d taught the Republican party to govern.  He chose excellent policies – only the best, such great policies! – and then fought for them.  He didn’t surrender when the Democrats attacked him, as so many Republicans so often did before I became President. 

Instead, he became kind of a mini-Trump, and that’s why he won so big for the people of Florida. 

Ron can’t know what I know, and that’s not a knock against him.  But he’s been a great governor while I’ve been a great president, and those are not the same thing.  I’ve been unfairly and viciously attacked more than any president in history – never happened before! – but it’s toughened me up. 

It’s given me the skin of an elephant.  The beautiful, tough skin of the finest elephant – the great animal mascot of our incredible party!  And it’s also taught me things that only a president can know.

Now many people say that Ron shouldn’t run this time around.  I’m not saying that, but I’ve heard it from many people.  Fine people.  “He shouldn’t run yet,” they say to me. “It’s not his time,” they say.

But I disagree.  In fact, I’d be honored if Ron ran with me, as my Vice President.  Together, we’d be a formidable team – so formidable! – and after four years of fighting together to finish the job I started, and truly Make America Great Again – I would happily pass the baton to Ron.” 

3. There’s an old truism that a politician’s two jobs are to make it harder to vote for his opponent, and easier to vote for him. 

Trump’s strong suit has always been making it hard to vote for the opposition. The nicknames, the combative style, the “they don’t hate me, they hate you, and they’re only attacking me b/c I’m in the way” helped him win his long-shot bid in 2016.

But his greatest weakness is the flip side.  While he sometimes uses his charm and authentic magnetism to attract people to him – I thought his visit to East Palestine, OH was a great example of Trump at his best! – he too often makes it very hard for anyone not in his camp to vote for him.  Huge swaths of the electorate hate him, and his smearing of DeSantis makes it harder for even ME to vote for him.

And I’ll crawl across broken glass to vote for him if he’s our nominee!

RDS on the other hand, has been aggressive with the press, but not usually in ways that will needlessly drive away voters.  The only political misstep I think he may have made is the new bill to drop the abortion ban from 15 weeks down to 6. 

The left has an awful, extremist position that most semi-informed voters don’t know about: abortion right up until the moment the baby crowns.  We should highlight that obscenity – demolish their dishonest “women’s rights to healthcare” euphemistic obfuscation – and make it harder for people to vote for that.

At the same time, achieving our ultimate goal is easier if we take a more moderate step first (a 15-week ban with exceptions for rape and incest), and take the wins everywhere we can get them.  Especially if the alternative is to be more morally correct (IMO) by going for a near-total ban that means that we lose what might have been a winnable result, i.e. reducing the number of abortions in the short run, with the possibility of more progress in the long run.     

In addition to his policy successes, DeSantis’ biography gives Dems very little to hit him with: 

He’s smart – having degrees from both Yale and Harvard.  (Sure, those don’t carry the impressive imprimature for conservatives as they do for independents and libs – academia has so besmirched itself over the last 25 years that we now know better – but the libs will have difficulty painting him as a dummy, try though they will.)

He joined the Navy and served overseas.  This is a bigger plus for us and some independents than for libs.  And we shouldn’t over-play it: he wasn’t in a combat role, and he didn’t fast-rope down onto a rooftop in Kandahar from a helicopter, with machine guns in both hands and a combat knife clenched in his teeth. 

But he had a law degree from Harvard and joined the Navy, instead of either joining daddy’s firm or becoming a career pol and sucking at the government teat for the rest of his life, like everyone else in DC. (Cough <Joe Biden> cough.)

His personal life appears to have been impeccable: married to one wife for 14 years and counting, 3 cute kids.  His wife is a cancer survivor (!), and the commercial she taped for him last year almost brought me to tears, and I normally hate that kind of soft-focus, touchy-feely ad.  The soccer moms and independents should eat that up.     

Of course, the left will still try to smear his personal life anyway.  They’ll dredge up a middle school classmate who says she once heard him say the “n” word, or they’ll try to pull a Kavanaugh, and get some unstable loon to say he assaulted her, but she can’t remember when or where, and there’s no evidence that he ever even met her. 

But to any uncommitted voters, those attacks will look super-thin and desperate, especially compared to Biden’s entire corrupt family kicking up 10% to the Big Guy from Burisma and the ChiComs, while
“smartest guy I ever met” Hunter was videotaping himself hip-deep in crack and hookers.  (“[Fredo] was banging cocktail waitresses two at a time!  Players couldn’t get a drink at the tables!”)

(Semi-obscure yet appropriate Godfather reference? Check.)

One other bonus for RDS: as far as I can tell, he’s not made any mortifyingly bad hires or appointments.   I’m sure that it will come out that some assistant to an Ag commissioner somewhere got a DUI, but his high-profile appointments have all been solid and even boringly competent.

I don’t blame Trump too much for his bad appointments as prez, because every POTUS has to rush to staff so many positions that mistakes are inevitable.  And that process was bound to be even tougher for an outsider like Trump, who had no deep connections and layers of networking to rely on when hiring.

But it’s still a fact that most of the administration figures he ended up firing and/or lambasting — the Mooch, Steve Bannon, Michael Cohen, Pompeo, Sessions, Bolton, Barr, even Mike Pence – were all people he either picked, kept or elevated. (I don’t even dislike all of those guys.  But Trump does, and he picked them all!)

I think it would have been politically tough for him to fire Fauci by mid-summer or so, when it was clear that he was a dishonest, self-serving hack.  But he kept him in place, and allowed him free reign all through the election season.

Having said all that, I don’t want to overdo it on praising DeSantis.  (“Too late,” many of you may be thinking.)  He’s a fallen man like the rest of us, and a politician, and I’m sure that time in the national spotlight wielded by our corrupt media and political elites will highlight all the flaws that are there. 

And as good conservatives, we shouldn’t be putting too much faith in any politician anyway. (“Put not your trust in princes,” the Psalmist says.)  We’re in the “let us run our own lives as much as possible” business, not the “putting pols on pedestals” business.

But DeSantis has made the fewest unforced errors of any politician I’ve seen.  And I salivate at the thought of him in a debate with Joey Gaffes, or Ken Doll Newsom, or any of the other dullards who might rise to the top of a Democrat nomination process.

By contrast, I always went into Trump debates knowing that he would probably land some haymakers – and Oh, how I loved those! – but also fearing what might come out of his mouth.  I can’t imagine being that worried before a DeSantis debate.

I’ll end this with my biggest election fear: the Dems use serial illegitimate and unfair indictments to maneuver us into defending Trump (as we should) and giving him the nomination, after which they capitalize on Trump hatred and fatigue in much of the nation to get the same results they got in ‘20 and ‘22.

I’m as concerned about voter fraud and a rigged election as all of you are, and I don’t have any confidence that we are doing anything now – or maybe even that there is anything we CAN do, considering corrupt Dem control over the states in question – that will prevent a repeat of ’20 in ’24.

The only way I see to overcome that is to win by so much that they aren’t able to steal it.  And I’m really sad to say this, but I don’t think Trump can do that.  I think he might be able to thread the needle and narrowly carry enough close states to just barely win, as he did in 2016.

But my gut tells me that that is exactly what happened in 2020.  And we all know how that turned out.

As a newcomer – with discipline that Trump doesn’t have, and with opposition that is not as hardened and immovable against him as Trump’s opposition (unjustly, IMO) is – DeSantis gives us the best chance to win by an “outside the margin of fraud” vote total.

Ugh – that was too gloomy of a note to end on. So I’ll close with a throwback to one of my favorite politicians in history: Cato the Elder (234-149 BC).

Roman soldier, senator and historian, Cato lived during a century-plus period when Rome’s great rival was the city of Carthage.  Cato was so focused on the threat posed by Carthage that he ended every speech – no matter what the topic – by saying, “Carthargo delenda est!”  (Carthage must be destroyed!)

That’s how I feel about the necessity of beating the Dems in 2024.  For the next year we’ll have our primaries and tout our favorites (and live our lives and try to give politics little room), but in the end our focus has to be on defending this great country from the leftist hordes who are doing so much damage.

Say it with me, people: “Biden delenda est!”

“Dr.” Jill Biden/Other Terrible Choice, 2024!