book-review – Martin Simpson

Throw-Back Friday (posted 8/1/25)

I’m up in Illinois with the cousins now, and looking forward to the reunion on Saturday. I was overwhelmed with the warmth and number of your responses to my bittersweet column on Wednesday. Thank you, one and all!

When I checked my computer last night before hitting the sack, one of my old columns came up in my feed. I don’t know how that works, but it felt like a sign, since it was as goofy and lighthearted as my Wednesday column was somber.

So I thought I’d re-post it here, for those of you who might have missed it the first time around. I posted it 5 years ago in May (as you might be able to tell from the fact that I was still half-accepting the “covid came from Chinese bats” cover story).

I don’t know if it’s a “Best of,” but I hope it will be a little palate cleanser for you as you start your weekend!

New Entry in the “Stupidest Article of the Year” competition (posted 5/1/20)

Bill Weir has a newborn son, born during the quarantine. That’s a cause for celebration, maybe even more than usual, against the backdrop of this time of disruption and social isolation. After spending part of the lockdown watching hours of You Tube videos of surprise pregnancy and twins and even triplets announcements – with all of the accompanying shouts and cheers and tears and joyful shock – I’m even more attuned than usual to appreciation of new life.

But there are some red flags for the newborn Weir boy.

First, his dad named him “River.” And no, it’s not a “Boy Named Sue” situation, in which you stick a kid with a name guaranteed to toughen him up via all of the expected abuse he’ll suffer because of it. He’s just the kind of dad who names his kid “River.” Strike one.

Second, Bill Weir works as the Chief Climate Correspondent for CNN. Strike two.

Third, he wrote a ridiculous letter to his son, and published it for all the world to see. And it is long, and tiresome, and packs more wrong-headed leftist tropes into one column than I would have thought possible. (And I’m known for packing lots of tiresome and wrong-headed political tropes into over-long columns myself!) (By people who are wrong about everything, I mean.) Strike three.

I won’t put you through the whole thing, but I think it’s worth sharing a few lowlights.

The letter starts, “My dearest River, Against all odds you were conceived in a lighthouse, born during a pandemic and will taste just enough of Life as We Knew It to resent us when it’s gone. I’m sorry. I’m sorry we broke your sea and your sky and shortened the wings of the nightingale. I’m sorry that the Great Barrier Reef is no longer great, that we value Amazon™ more than the Amazon and that the waterfront neighborhood where you burble in my arms could be condemned by rising seas before you’re old enough for a mortgage.”

Yikes! There’s so much wrong with that, I don’t know where to start.

No, wait a minute: I do know where to start.

Don’t tell your kids where and how they were conceived! The letter starts and ends with references to a vacation that he and his wife took to Croatia, and the Dubrovnik lighthouse they stayed in. Where – he wants River and the world to know – they “did it.”

Ugh. First, I can’t think of anything more gross for this young kid to read as he gets older than the details of his parent’s love life.

Second, what an erotic narcissist: “You plebes probably conceived your normally-named kids in a bland 3 bedroom tract house, in the missionary position. Yuck. Meanwhile, my lover and I (and you know this is the kind of gag-inducing male who calls his wife his “lover,” just to stick you with a mental image that you do NOT want) hiked up a wind-swept cliff-face in a romantic foreign land during a thunderstorm to break into a century-old lighthouse, where we alarmed the livestock with our creative lovemaking and exotic outfits.”

As you regular readers know, one of the best life strategies you can follow is to ask WWMD (What Would Martacus Do?), and then act accordingly. So what have I told my children about their conception, I know you are wondering.

Did I tell them, for instance, that their mother and I – having grown bored after romping our way through a series of sexual escapades that made the Kama Sutra look like a spring 1956 edition of the Saturday Evening Post – decided to try something different, when the Ringling Brother’s Circus came to town? So we broke into the big tent at 2 in the morning, and after spending a half hour getting the hang of the trapeze, managed an aerial encounter involving several flips, hanging onto a bar upside down with just my knees, and finishing in a fall into a giant net, and 9 months later our oldest was born?

Or that four years later, we came up with the idea for an assignation on the back of a 2-year old Palomino that incorporated the kind of horsemanship worthy of a young Crazy Horse at the height of his powers, in a little trick I like to call the ol’ “canter-canter-trot-TROT-GALLOP!” And that 9 months later, our youngest was born?

Perhaps I’ve said too much.

The point is that of course I haven’t told them that! All they know is that when a man and woman love each other very much, the man carries the woman through a bedroom doorway that is in black and white for some reason, and then the door shuts and the credits roll (“Gregory Peck as Martacus,” “Lauren Bacall as Mrs. Simpson.” “Nancy Pelosi as the Mummy,” “Elizabeth Warren as the Cigar Store Indian.”) (#wemustneverstopmockingher) And nine months later, one of them is born.

And nobody is named “River.”

Weir moves from erotic narcissism to climate narcissism: “I’m so sorry that we broke your sea and your sky?” I’m pretty sure that the sea is still there, and I was just looking at the sky this afternoon. Doesn’t seem broken.

And because he’s apparently learned all his science from Al Gore and Captain Planet, he thinks that his house is going to be underwater in 20 years or so. And just like with my old lefty buddies who were sure that the oceans would be dead by now, and acid rain would have wiped out half of our population, and a new global ice age would have wiped out the other half, I’d like to call Weir and remind him of his hysteria and laugh at him, as he sits in his un-condemned and totally dry house.

Weir goes on: “See, for decades, scientists told us that if we weren’t careful, humans would unleash an invisible enemy out of the jungle and into our lungs. But that was a story few wanted to believe. So we kept cutting down jungles — and prairies and mangroves and the last few the places where the wild things are — to pave and plow, develop and devour everything inside.”

Does this guy think that the Flu Manchu came from humans cutting down jungles? Has nobody told him about the Chinese boneheads eating the bats, or the Chicom boneheads and their fifth-rate lab safety procedures, or the progressive slave-state bureaucrats in Beijing who lied about everything (as commies are wont to do) until it was too late to stop a pandemic? Apparently not.

“As you get older, this will be hard to understand. But we were under the spell of Genesis 1:28: to take dominion over every living thing.”

Good lord! I love when non-Christians who wouldn’t know Saint Paul from Minneapolis-St.Paul expound on how the evil Bible teaches that we should destroy the environment. “And God said, go forth and cut down the jungles, and pile up the wood and make a great fire, upon which thou must roasteth the bat, notwithstanding that it is the least delicious of all the fowl that flieth through the air. Then shalt thou cough on thy neighbors, who must thenceforth flee to the airports and disperse throughout the globe, spreading the pestilence while your vile and indolent government lieth about it all, and keepeth on with the intellectual property theft and the exporting of lead-based toys and contaminated drywall.”

I’m no theologian, but you don’t have to be Aquinas to understand that the Biblical mandate is for humanity to be stewards of the environment, not destroyers of it.

Weir isn’t done: “We had the strange urge to carve straight lines out of nature’s curves and were under the spell of a uniquely human force called “profit motive.”

You mean like the profit motive that has allowed you to get a six-figure job writing terrible “journalism,” and allowed you to afford a house to take River home to?

The article goes on and on, but it’s too painful to spend any more time on. I just find myself feeling sorry for his son, because he’s less than a month old and his dad is already filling his mind with alarmist doom and gloom. “We’ve killed the planet, we’re all cursed, you’ll never know how things used to be so great, but now they’re terrible, and getting worse every day. Sorry about that. By the way, did I ever tell you the story about the time I absolutely wrecked your mother doing downward-facing dog on a faux bearskin rug on the flagstone floors of a Dubrovnik lighthouse?”

Not since the Cuyahoga was so filled with chemicals that it caught fire has any River been so badly treated.

To get the bad taste of this article out of my mouth, I’ve written a letter to my oldest daughter, to cosmically balance Weir’s toxic letter:

Dear Katie,

First, aren’t you glad to have a great name like “Katherine,” which is classic, timeless and versatile, and not something ridiculous like “Conifer” or “Aquifer” or “Saguaro Cactus Simpson?” You’re welcome.

Second, never mind how your mom and I made you. You’re here now, and you’ve been nurtured and educated and equipped to make your own way in the best nation ever. You’re welcome again.

Third, we used to be much worse stewards of the environment that God has given us responsibility for, but because we have free markets, we have gotten wealthier, and our wealth has allowed us to innovate and improve our treatment of nature. We’ve found ways to grow more food on less land, and our modes of building and transportation are becoming cleaner and less destructive with each passing year. If we can just not watch CNN, elect less leftists, and get the Chicoms to stop eating the freaking bats, your future is going to be brighter than for any other generation in history.

Now get out there and be an Ameri-CAN!”

Avenatti/River Weir 2020!

Three More Candidates for Moron of the Month (posted 4/14/25)

By now you’ve all seen that CO has temporarily stepped back from the page for a few days, which I feel like puts a little more pressure on me to make you laugh on a Monday morning. But much like Walter Clayton Jr. (from the national champion Florida Gators – have I mentioned that?), I’m a clutch player.

So it’s Martacus’ time to shine!

In my Friday column I introduced three candidates for “Moron of the Month,” and by popular acclaim, Jasmine “Fake Lashes” Crockett beat out the too aptly named Chase Strangio and drama queen Spartacus Booker to move on to represent the Eastern division in the next round.

Today we’ve got three more worthy competitors, this time from the Western division. (Just like in the NCAA tournament, geographical names for the divisions are meaningless.)

First up we’ve got Elie Mystal, a public “intellectual” (and yes, those scare quotes are mandatory) with degrees from Harvard (because of course he has) who would be best known for his rabid America- and whitey-hatred, except for the fact that every African-American appearing on MSNBC is an unpatriotic, rabid whitey hater.

So he’s best known for his truly ridiculous, giant gray puff-ball of an Afro. Which makes him look like he’s closing in on 70, when he’s actually only 46. I have two theories about that:

1. He got so sick of all of the Fat Albert jokes that he dyed his hair gray to stop them. (Though I’m not sure that, “Hey, hey, hey… it’s Old dumb Albert!” is a whole lot better.)

2. Just like soldiers who live through horrifying combat sometimes go prematurely gray, I think maybe morons who think too many horrifyingly stupid thoughts go through the same thing.

Though he’s little known to the general public (because he writes for The Nation, and often appears on MSNBC), Mystal has been making a name for himself in moron circles for quite a while.

He wrote an execrable book in 2022 called, “Allow me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution.” I planned to write a review of it called, “Allow me to Vomit: A White Guy’s Review of F.A. Mystal’s “A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution.” But I couldn’t make it through the first several pages.

Earlier this month, he came out with his second book, “Bad Law: Ten Popular Laws That are Ruining America.” And it has single-handedly made a liar out of me, because I spent many years telling my students that there is no such thing as a stupid question.

Then I read the table of contents of Bad Law. Consider the following chapter titles, along with the obvious answers to each:

Chapter 2: How Did Immigrants Become “Illegal?” [By breaking our laws, you moron.]

Chapter 4: Why Do We Incarcerate So Many People? [Because they break our laws, you moron.]

Chapter 7: “Why Do We Give White Guys a License to Kill Black People?” [We don’t, you moron.]

Chapter 9: “Why Can’t We Say Gay?” [We can, you moron.]

As you can already tell, Mystal has an IQ low enough to scare those nightmarish albino fish in the lightless depths of the Mariana Trench. (Latin name: “pescatorus LizWarrenus”) (#wemustneverstopmockingher)

But he’s also got the second element of the one-two punch that so many elite leftists have: a narcissism as large as the great outdoors.

In an interview to promote Bad Law, he talked about how he is such a significant critic of the Trump administration that he’s had to hire security during his book tour, because he’s worried that Trump is going to have someone “snatch him up off the street.”

(Make your own, “Watch out for a forklift with a presidential seal on it, Elie!” joke here.)

My favorite idiotic statement of his came on his appearance on The View. I know. And he might have been the dumbest one on the set that day. Which…yikes!

When explaining why we shouldn’t abide by our immigration laws, he referred to how racist and awful America is (duh!), and said, “Every law passed before the 1965 Voting Rights Act should be presumptively unconstitutional.”

Let that sink in for a minute. The only way to declare any law unconstitutional is to examine it in the light of our founding legal document: the constitution. Which Elie apparently thinks was written after 1965?

To which I can only say: “Hey, hey, hey… it’s innumerate Albert!”

Our second contestant is named Greisa Martinez Rosas, a leftist activist and executive director of United We Dream. Her group participated in one of the high-profile “Hands Off” rallies on April 5^th, protesting against Trump and Elon. In fact, her rally was in Washington, DC.

She spoke on stage at the protest, and was brazen enough to give her full name and shout, “I am an immigrant. I am undocumented, unafraid, queer and unashamed.”

I don’t know what “queer” has to do with it. Or, for that matter, what “queer” means. Is it just a synonym for “gay?” But if so, why list the “Q” and the “G” in your alphabet list of identities? And if not—

Never mind. I don’t care. I like women, and I don’t understand the rest of you, but good luck with all of that. Or congratulations, or my condolences, or good for you, or get well soon, or whatever.

Where was I?

Oh yeah. For some reason, Griesa really needs for all of us to know that she’s illegal and unafraid.

If she had admitted that when the late Joe Biden was still the president, or when Obama was, she would have had good reason for being unafraid. Because those guys were busy circumventing the law (and making up new laws) to go after conservatives, and had no appetite for following our immigration laws.

But there’s a new sheriff in town, and his sidekick is Hulk Homan™, and Griesa has made a big target of herself. (That’s not a joke about her appearance. Though if you put her in a line-up with the drug dealer/bowling ball illegal from a few weeks ago…)

So Griesa could have tried to fly under the radar, or maybe even gone underground. But she decided the best thing to do was to go to the nation’s capital, clomp up onto a stage, and lean into a microphone to confess to being a criminal, in front of an audience of wildly cheering morons.

Making her eligible for Moron of the Month. And hopefully, a visit from ICE.

Rounding out the Western division nominees is Tania Fernandes Anderson. Her campaign might be hurt by the fact that she’s unknown outside of the Boston area – she’s on the City Council there. But don’t count her out, because she’s a five-tool player. Or, to be more accurate, a five-tool tool.

Because she’s a BLM activist, a Democrat, a Muslim-American, a sanctuary city supporter, and a “former undocumented immigrant.”

Okay, maybe the Muslim thing isn’t necessarily a problem. And there are some decent Democrats. But that still leaves the other three strikes, which are enough to call her out. She’s the kind of sweetheart who recently slammed her fist on the podium and said, “What the f**k do I have to do in this council in order to get respect as a black woman?”

Not beating up city property and dropping F bombs would be a good start, Sweetie.

Anyway, Tania has just pled guilty in a federal corruption case, and won’t be bringing her special brand of wisdom to the Boston City Council anymore.

It turns out that Tania couldn’t be expected to get by on her measly, taxpayer-provided salary of only $115K a year. So she hired her sister and a son to staff positions before she’d even been sworn in – which is illegal – and then gave the sister a good salary and a $13K “bonus” from the taxpayers, and then took $7,000 of that back as a kickback. When she was initially questioned about that, she denied that her sister was her sister. She was also cited for failing to report almost $33K in campaign contributions, and exceeding legal state donation limits.

By the way, two years ago she was demanding stronger protections for illegal immigrants and telling Boston to defy ICE. Who could have guessed that a woman like that would turn out to be a criminal herself?

Thus proving the old adage: It’s always the ones you most suspect.

When I read her story – in between fits of bitter laughter – I learned that she came here illegally, but that in 2019 “she became an American citizen.” I’m not sure how that worked, but the good news is that her conviction may “threaten her immigration status.”

Well let’s hope so!

In tough times like these, she would normally be able to turn to her husband, Tanzerious Anderson, for comfort.

I’m serious. I’m not delirious. Or trying to be mysterious. His name’s “Tanzerious.” (Don’t tell me that I couldn’t write poetry, if I put my mind to it.)

But Tanzerious won’t be able to help his criminal wife, because he’s currently in prison for murder.

Unexpectedly!

So there are your choices, CO nation, and they are all worthy of your consideration. Griesa and Tania both get points for brazenness, while Elie wisely kept a much lower profile, by only appearing on the little-watched MSNBC and the View. And he has to get some points for that preposterous Afro.

But Griesa went to the shadow of the White House to confess her criminality.

Then again, Tania gave me the chance to write “Tanzerious.”

Happy Monday, and I await your verdict.

Hamas delenda est!

From Corrupt Agencies to Illegals to Murderers, the Left Can’t Choose the Right Side (posted 3/19/25)

This is my third column of the week, and I’ll have one more on Friday, and attentive readers may notice that there has been one through-line in many of my recent ramblings: the left’s perplexing inability to choose the morally or even politically correct side in any conflict.

If there’s a clash between law breakers and law abiders, they’ll back the former. Give them an illegal immigrant over a legal one, a gang-banger over a choir-boy, and creepy dude in a dress over a schoolgirl trying to shower unmolested every time.

I don’t get it, but bless their hearts, they may never win another election if they keep this up. And wouldn’t that be grand?

Three quick examples from the last week:

1. Even a political neophyte knows that the Department of Education has made itself toxic. The lion’s share of all education decisions are made and money is spent on the state level, which is as it should be. The Ed Dept is crammed full of well-paid and insular educrats in DC, where the rotten 98% give the other 2% a bad reputation.

Since its founding in 1977, $1.4 trillion (!) has been spent on the Ed feds, and the proof of the pudding is in the gagging. As our education has become more expensive, student test scores have plummeted. Our students can somehow count all 57 of the 2 genders, but nothing else. They read few classics, and most of the history they “know” just isn’t so.

As the great Dennis Miller once noted, the fact that only one of the “Three Rs” actually starts with the letter “R” tells you everything you need to know.

Enter Grandma Squanto Warren, being asked for her reaction to Trump’s much needed culling of the Ed Department last Friday. A smart politician would have said something like, “I welcome any efforts to scrutinize the department, because it can definitely do a better job than it’s been doing. But Trump is taking the wrong approach blah blah blah.”

So what did Warren say? Watch the 45 second video of her quasi-teary, content-less mush of glittering generalities that never comes within a mile of the reality of the grift-apalooza that is the DC education establishment.

I haven’t seen a fake Indian that sad since the Italian-American actor with the stage name “Iron Eyes Cody” (his real name was something like Rocco Vincenzo Corleone) made those commercials crying over littering in the 1970s.

But what else would we expect from the empty headdress from Massachusetts? (#wemustneverstopmockingher)

My only disappointment was that she didn’t take the time to emote about her fond memories of the one-room school-tepee where she learned her ABCs (A- always, B- be, C- Cherokee) back on the wide-open prairies of Martha’s Vineyard. (#neverstop)

2. The latest example of the MSM ineptly trying to elicit sympathy for an illegal comes from Philly, where Virginia-Basora Gonzalez, 36, sobbed as ICE agents re-arrested her. If you google her name, I’ve got to give you a trigger warning on opening that picture without preparing yourself.

Because, yikes!

Some say that she looks like a bowling ball with eyes. She got picked up wearing sweats and a large shirt that… how can I put this?

You’re going to need a bigger bowling bag.

Okay, I apologize. I just did a thing that lefty “journalists” always do, and that drives me crazy, when I said that “some say” she looks like a bowling ball with eyes.

It’s me. I’m the one who says that. Because you look at her, and tell me that she’s not a Brunswick 16-pounder with an insanely long stretch between the thumb and finger-holes when you’re looking for a smooth-rolling 12-pounder on league night and you forgot your ball at home.

Before you can say anything, I know: I shouldn’t criticize anyone’s appearance, especially when I look like this. Sure, I’m not as bad as I was a week ago, when I was more poison ivy than man. But I’m still not the matinee idol that you’ve come to know and love over here, either.

Anyway, forget all that. I mock her only because she’s been criminally playing our system, in very familiar ways: first arrested in PA for 40 grams or more of fentanyl and aiding and abetting in June of 2019. (I don’t know what she was aiding and abetting, unless it was helping somebody bowl three perfect games in one night.)

After serving out part of a short sentence, she was deported back to the DR, only to illegally re-enter and get caught again last week. And yes, I know that my lefty pals will say that lots of Americans deal drugs too.

Yeah. We know. We’ve got plenty of our own drug dealers, which is just one reason why we don’t need to import more of them. Especially ones that, when you drop them in your backswing, they’re going to take out several people sitting behind the ball return.

3. To hear him tell it, Jessie Hoffman Jr. 46, is a peaceful man, deeply devoted to his Buddhist breathing and meditation rituals, and put upon by SCOTUS’ unwillingness to respect his religious beliefs.

But to hear me tell it, Hoffman is a worthless POS who – if Buddha were here right now, and not too rotund and apathetic to dish out a righteous beating – would dish out a righteous beating to Jessie Hoffman Jr.

(What is the sound of one hand clapping? I don’t know. But I do know that the sound of two hands in a blur of quick jabs using Jessie Hoffman’s stupid head like a speed bag is the sound of justice.)

What’s my beef with Jessie Hoffman, Jr., you might be asking? Just that in 1996, he kidnapped 28-year-old Mary Elliott, a young wife who had just gotten off work, forced her to withdraw $200 from an ATM, then drove her to a lonely spot in the country, terrorized her, raped her, and shot her in the head.

Last night, 29 years later – i.e. one year longer than Mary Elliott’s entire time on earth – the state of Louisiana finally executed Hoffman. It made the news because they used the novel method of administering nitrogen gas through a respirator mask until Hoffman died of nitrogen hypoxia.

On one hand, I’m all for the kind of federalism that means that all 50 states are free to experiment with various and sundry ways to kill the many vicious murderers and rapists who desperately need killing in these United States. So I appreciate this kind of outside-the-coffin thinking.

I might also note that we’re only trying new methods because an endless stream of morally disordered bleeding hearts have been kvetching over every existing execution method like a sociopathic Woody Allen. (I mean, a Woody Allen way more sociopathic than the actual Woody Allen.)

“Gas can make people choke, and nooses are really scratchy. Some gunshots are so loud they could give you a heart attack. And don’t get me started on electrocution! I once walked across some carpet in my stocking feet and touched a lamp, and I thought I’d die!”

State authorities chose nitrogen because it’s supposedly painless and humane. The murderer-sympathizers aren’t satisfied though, worrying that if the respirator mask isn’t fitted tightly enough around the vicious animal’s face, enough oxygen might seep in to prolong his death, or make him nauseous, or even cause him to choke on his own vomit.

I’m serious. That’s what keeps them up at night. The murdering rapist might die with a tummy ache, or go out like Jimi Hendrix, John Bonham and Bon Scott. (And those guys ROCKED!)

Too soon? Perhaps I’ve said too much.

Anyway, I cannot imagine caring if Jessie Hoffman was a little uncomfortable right before he died, only 29 years too late. In fact, if you told me that inhaling nitrogen caused the sensation of being kidnapped at gunpoint, driven to a lonely spot, stripped, raped and shot in the head execution style, the only other question I’d have is whether we could tweak the nitrogen mixture so that those same sensations would intensify, and last longer.

“So Martin, what was that Buddhist angle you mentioned earlier?” you might be asking. In which case I’d thank you, because I’d forgotten about that part.

One of cowardly rapist Jessie Hoffman Jr.’s reasons for appealing his death sentence was that the nitrogen would violate his religious freedom because – and I swear I’m not making this up – “nitrogen hypoxia would interfere with [his] Buddhist breathing and meditation during his final moments alive.”

Hey Jessie, you know what else interferes with breathing and meditation? [begin Kinison filter] BEING DRAGGED OUT INTO THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE AND SHOT IN THE HEAD BY A HEARTLESS, 0RECIDIVIST PIECE OF CRAP! OH! OOOHH!!! [end Kinison filter]

Tragically, Hoffman appears to have died painlessly.

But still, let’s all synchronize our watches, in anticipation of Melting Face Maxine Waters stepping up to a microphone to announce a protest to honor civil rights martyr Jessie Hoffman Jr., who was killed by the most white-supremacist of all elemental gases: Nitrogen.

In 3… 2… 1…

Hamas delenda est!

Whiny Hunger Strikers, & Hillary’s Play Bombs (posted 5/13/24)

By the time you read this, I will be flying to Massachusetts with my wife and youngest daughter, to spend the better part of a week sightseeing with my oldest and her husband, culminating in watching her receive her Masters in nursing at Amherst. This will likely mean a cold and Simpson-less Friday (i.e. no column that day), but I trust that you all will soldier on.

In the meantime, there are too many things for me to talk about, so I’ll do the best I can.

First, I love me a good hunger strike. In fact, I have been known to participate in a few of my own. When I was ages three through about six, for example, I regularly conducted hunger strikes.

Most often on meatloaf night.

I would begin by advancing my argument, which ran something like this: “C’mon, meatloaf again? This has to violate the Geneva Conventions! You can’t even tell me what kind of ‘meat’ this is. It’s literally a loaf of undifferentiated meat!” (I had a precocious vocabulary at age 3.)

My dad would respond with tales about being born in the depression, and being offered rock soup with a dandelion salad, and all of it sprinkled with coal dust from the mines where grandpa worked 18 hours a day. And all 8 Simpson kids were glad to have it, and would sometimes even fight over who could have a second bowl of rock soup.

I would propose a compromise wherein I would give the dog my meatloaf, and I would have a bowl of Captain Crunch.

Eventually, dad would arrive at his final offer. “There are two choices for supper tonight: take it, or leave it.”

Check and mate.

Fast forward to now, and students at Princeton are less mature than I was at 3. Thus the young hunger-striking woman who is now being roundly mocked for her dramatic reading – from text on her phone – of her complaint:

“This is absolutely unfair. My peers and I, we are starving.” [Sweetheart, it’s a HUNGER strike. Are you really complaining about being hungry during your self-imposed hunger strike?!] “We are physically exhausted, I am quite literally shaking right now, as you can see.”

Have you ever seen video of the police interrogating a sociopath after a horrific crime? The sociopath will often pretend to cry, looking down, covering her eyes, asking for a tissue, and using it to wipe away non-existent tears?

This was like that. And you know how I also know that her supposed shaking wasn’t genuine?

Because SHE READ IT OFF A PRE-WRITTEN SCRIPT ON HER PHONE! OH! OHHHHHH! (That’s right, I slipped a little Sam Kinison in on you.)

The only way her bad acting could have been more transparent would be if she were to “pull a Biden,” i.e. inadvertently read her stage directions aloud: “I’m literally shaking, as you can see. Shake now. Pause. Continue reading.”

Next, she actually said these lines: “We are both cold and hot at the same time. We are all immuno-compromised.”

Yes, if by “immuno-compromised” you mean “riddled with STDs and a severe case of narcissistic personality disorder.”

And “hot and cold at the same time?” That’s not a thing. I mean, if you’re kicking heroin cold turkey, you might have alternating chills and fever. But not at the same time. And not because you skipped a few meals.

By the way, did you see those “hunger strikers?” Some of them would tip the scale in the gray area between Whoopi Goldberg and Lizzo, so I don’t think going on a diet of water and (I’m guessing) surreptitiously gobbled protein bars is going to be life-threatening for them.

The moral of the story? When I was three, stomping off to bed without eating meatloaf never forced my parents to bring a big bag of Fritos and a bowl of chocolate ice cream to my room.

And a bunch of crybully Ivy League brats pretending to dab at fake tears with their keffiyehs ($29.99 at Amazon, made in China) and faux-fainting is not going to result in the murder of all the Jews in Israel. Sorry kids.

Hilarious hunger striking aside, the weekend was full of widespread interruptions of graduations. Some ceremonies were cancelled entirely; others were disrupted by stupid chanting and walk-outs. Jerry Seinfeld was the graduation speaker at Duke, and that event was interrupted by a bunch of selfish jerks getting up and chanting and waving a “Palestinian” flag as they marched out.

Because I’m a cautious optimist, I can see two very silver linings on this pro-terrorist cloud:

1. The shenanigans are mostly affecting leftist colleges with leftist administrations in leftist-run towns, which means that the majority of the inconvenience and disruption is being suffered by those who tolerate and even support it. So they can suck it, Trebek.

2. The antics of these morons – wrapping a George Washington statue in terrorist headgear, blocking traffic, burning American flags, violating various vandalism, harassment and trespassing laws – are infuriating to normal people. They’re making more people hate them every day, and they’re creating a widening rift within the Democrat party.

So keep it up, numbskulls! If we can’t have you dispersed, chased and charred by a pack of flamethrower robot dogs – and tragically, we apparently cannot – the second-best outcome is for you to identify yourselves to the rest of us, and build a huge backlash against your political goals.

(By the way, I was hoping to put my new flamethrower in a checked bag for the trip to MA, but my killjoy wife nixed the idea. So if some Hamas-lovers disrupt my daughter’s graduation and are allowed to escape burn-free, she’s going to hear a lot of, “I told you so” next weekend!)

In other news, Hillary Clinton has produced a Broadway play called, “Suffs.” It is nearly three hours long, and tells the story of the women’s suffrage movement a century ago. It also features an “entirely female and non-binary cast,” including a gal who plays President Woodrow Wilson.

And it is bombing.

UNEXPECTEDLY!

The show’s promotional material notes that “Suffs boldly explores the victories and failures of a struggle for equality that’s far from over.”

Um, the suffrage movement was about getting women the right to vote. They won that in 1920, which my abacus tells me is more than a century ago. So no, the “struggle” is not “far from over.”

Judging by the box office, neither is Suffs. In fact, I’d guess that it’s very close to over.

By the way, as I was about to post this column, I saw an update on the Princeton hunger strike, which I swear I am not making up.

The day after the “literally shaking” gal gave her brave speech from the edge of the grave, the original 13 hunger strikers ended their strike. Because they were very hungry. Unexpectedly!

But never fear, because as their nightmarish bout of peckishness ended (just in time!) seven new strikers took up the cause. Or, as their press statement describes it, “In the tradition of rotary hunger strikes, 7 new strikers are indefinitely fasting for a free Palestine.”

Is that not brilliant? A “rotary hunger strike!” It’s like hunger striking, but then when your stomach starts growling, you pass the baton to another Jew hater who is willing to skip brunch.

Only instead of a baton, it’s a footlong sub sandwich. Which you then mow through like a woodchipper, because you haven’t eaten in several hours.

Which gives me an idea. I propose that all of us in CO nation begin a rotary hunger strike, and we keep it up until all of our demands are met. Or at least our first three demands:

1. All student pro-Hamas protestors be arrested and expelled.

2. All non-student pro-Hamas protestors be arrested and deported to Gaza, even if they are American citizens.

3. The $80 billion appropriated to hire more IRS agents be redirected to the manufacture and purchase of a giant army of flamethrower robot dogs, half of which are to be immediately sent to American college campuses, and the other half to the southern border.

If we all sign up to skip just one meal, we can keep this rotary hunger strike going on definitely! Who’s with me?

I’ll go first. I hereby volunteer to skip supper on Meatloaf Mondays.

Hamas delenda est!

Some Annoying People, But Look: Flamethrower Robot Dog! (posted 4/26/24)

Hey, you know who’s a terrible person?

Whoa, whoa, don’t everybody talk at once. All right, considering the news lately, that was a bad way to start a column. (But yes, all of the people you named just now – either out loud or in your head – fit the description.) So let me try again.

Megan Rapinoe continues to prove that she’s a terrible person.

You might not remember her from her soccer playing (because soccer is totally non-memorable), but you probably remember her whining about how Big Soccer is totally sexist for not paying female players the same as male players.

You also might remember that after she ended her career by tearing an Achilles while she was walking on soft grass with nobody within 10 yards of her, she drew a theologically stupid moral from that story (God does not exist), rather than the obviously correct one (God is hilarious!).

Now that she’s safely retired, she’s pushing the anti-woman idea that “trans-women” (i.e. mentally ill or creepy men) should be allowed to play women’s soccer.

Think about that. She couldn’t take a quiet walk on a nice lawn without shredding her Achilles, but she wants to shame other women into going toe-to-toe with hulking male power forwards or kick-strikers. (Yes, life is too short for me to spend a single minute researching what actual positions exist in soccer.)

But in her defense, if she would come out of retirement to play one game against men and get her arse thoroughly kicked…I might watch that one soccer game.

Speaking of obnoxious, sexually confused weirdos, if you haven’t seen the video of a “transgender” dude trying to shame a large black employee in a Texas Dollar General store for “misgendering” him, you need to do so immediately.

When the deranged customer starts recording the guy, he responds by rolling his eyes and pulling out his own phone and narrating the events, starting with, “This fella’s giving me a hard time because their card’s declined—” after which the cry-bully starts swearing and leaves, promising, “You’re going to lose your job, sir.”

First, I don’t disparage anybody’s job, when they’re working a low-status but honest job, paying their taxes and contributing to society. Especially when compared to life-long welfare recipients, college kids getting worthless degrees paid for by school loans they expect Biden to “forgive” later (in other words, as previously stated, “life-long welfare recipients”), or MSM talking heads pulling down multimillion dollar salaries as professional liars, anybody working at Dollar General is making a great contribution to society.

But that being said, I don’t think “You’re going to lose your job!” to a guy at Dollar General is quite the terrifying threat that this narcissist cosplayer thinks it is.

Second, if we’re going to grade events that bring shame upon you, I’m not sure that “dude dressing like a woman and throwing a hissy fit” is any worse than “your credit card was turned down at Dollar General.”

One commenter won the day: “Bro put the ‘trans’ in ‘trans-action declined.’”

If you’re ever in this employee’s position, I have some fantastic advice for you. (When I’m out not being called a hilarious genius, I’m often called a hilarious guru.)

If you are ever confronted by a sexually confused guy raving at you in public about how he’s really a woman, just do what I do. Hold both of your arms out in front of you, palms up and facing the hysteric, and in a quiet and soothing voice, say, “Just calm down, sir.”

Works every time, and you’re welcome.

The most aggravating story of this week has been the persistent campus pro-Hamas “protests” that blue-state officials and administrators have allowed to go on for way too long. One highlight was Ilhan Omar’s daughter getting suspended, and then getting even more entertaining in her drama-queen over-reactions.

She was given some time on MSNBC (because of course she was) to whine about the many ways in which she and her anti-Semitic genocide-enthusiasts are the real victims. When she was suspended, for example (after only a half-million warnings), she was left without any food or a place to stay.

She said that the pushback against her side’s threatening actions was “hypocritical” because “every single protest that we have, there’s a group of counter-protestors who bring all of their their items, their flags and things like that.”

Got that? If her group brings their pro-terrorism flags and banners, and protests, that’s great. But if people who disagree with her do the same, they’re hypocrites. (Talk about the pot calling the kettle Somalian!)

She also repeatedly accused the evil Jewish counter-protestors of having used “chemical weapons” against the peaceful jihad-supporters. Hilariously enough, it turns out that the “chemical weapons” in question was actually “fart spray.” You’ll not be shocked to hear that no one was burned, hospitalized or killed from the malodorous crime against humanity.

(Rumors that Eric Swalwell was seen in the encampment at the time of the incident have not been confirmed.)

Not content to be out-dumbed by the offspring of Omar’s allegedly incestuous relationship with her brother, AOC gave her a run for her money in a hysterical tweet about Columbia’s “horrific decision” to request NYPD help to deal with the lawbreakers. She was especially juicy-bootie-hurt (her words, not mine) because “counter-terrorism units” were deployed with the cops.

Yes, it’s truly “horrific” to have the cops come when people are breaking dozens of laws, and why would anyone use counter-terrorism cops against unruly supporters of terrorism? It’s a world gone mad!

But even among the crowds of morons seemingly besetting our society on all sides, there is still an upbeat story in the newest “Celebration of Excellence” category, and this one is an exception to a rule for me.

I’m not usually one for tinkering with things that aren’t broken. I wish I could still buy a car with a metal key and crank-up windows, because a metal key never has a dead battery and the crank isn’t broken.

And I don’t understand attractive young people who say, “I’ve got this great body that God gave me, with amazing curves and pristine, unblemished skin. So let me cover it all with tattoos, causing people to guess which biker gang I joined and where I did my time.

And as regular readers – and all those with discernment and good judgment – know, there are few creatures on earth that are less broken, and less in need of tinkering, than dogs. And I’m not just saying that because I own Cassie the Wonder Dog, or because I’m personal friends with the amazing Aussie-Whisperer, COSE.

But this might be the rare time when I could possibly be wrong. Because I just read a story in the Daily Mail about the Thermonator, which is “the first ever flamethrowing robot dog!”

It’s made by a company in Ohio (USA! USA!), weighs about 37-pounds, features a variety of sensors and cameras, and carries a flamethrower on its back capable of “shooting a jet of fire up to 30 feet.”

And it’s only $9420!

Right now I imagine that most female readers are rolling their eyes. But all of my male readers are saying either, “Yes, please!” or “RO-BOT DOG! RO-BOT DOG!” and high-fiving each other.

The company has a video of the Thermonator in action (I give it 5 stars), along with their sales pitch, which claims that the mechanical beast can be used for “entertainment, wildfire control, agricultural management, and ice removal.”

They had me at “entertainment.” Because I’ve got a great idea for that.

With fast enough shipping, I can receive my flamethrowing robot dog this weekend – I’m already in the process of explaining to my wife that we can’t afford NOT to buy a flamethrowing robot dog – and race for New England.

The next thing you know, I’ll be parked on the edge of an Ivy League campus where the pro-Hamas loons have set up their Jew-hater tents, reading the manual (“Congratulations on your purchase of the Thermonator 3000…”) to figure out how to set the flamethrower on “roast.”

Do you think any of the Hamas-niks double-majoring in grievance studies and America hatred would get the Shakespeare reference if I yelled, “Cry havoc, and let slip the flamethrowing robot dog of war!” before I released the Thermonator?

Or I could just stick to the old standard…

Hamas delenda est!

A Tale of Two Males (posted 4/12/24)

This first story happens in Indiana, a Midwestern state that is basically the Illinois I grew up in, before the Dems in Chicago and Springfield lost their minds and began committing a decades-long, first-degree wokicide on my much-loved home state.

The scene was a Subway sandwich shop on March 22^nd.

The players:

Daniel Saunders, 31, a bully and a crappy human (I’m judging by video of the incident).

Un-named short, Hispanic-looking lady behind the counter.

Gabriel Pitzulo, a twenty-something former wrestler with dreamy blue eyes.

(I’m just sayin’, ladies. CO and I are taken, but if you’re single and looking for a good man, you might want to head to Indy and look up Gabriel P.)

As Gabriel came in to the shop, Saunders was screaming at the little Hispanic lady and throwing stuff at her from over the counter. Then he turned and started to stalk out, with a cocky bounce to his step. Because as everyone knows, the best proof that a guy is a real bad-arse is his ability to menace and intimidate a small Latina.

Gabriel tackled Saunders, spinning his body to slam him onto the floor, and then pinning him and holding him until the cops arrived. Saunders tried to fight back and free himself, but because Gabriel isn’t a diminutive lady and Saunders is a cowardly douche, that mostly meant whining and kicking his little feet.

So if you’re scoring at home, Saunders was 1-0 against a tiny lady, and 0-1 against someone his own size and gender.

Because this happened in Indiana – and not in NYC, CA, Chicago or any other Dem-run big city – Saunders was charged with some pretty nifty crimes, including battery, battery resulting in bodily injury, and a new favorite to me: “disorderly conduct-fighting/tumultuous conduct.”

I for one have not been able to work “tumultuous” into everyday conversations often enough, but from now on I’m going to try.

The best part of this story is to read or listen to Gabriel’s account of the incident, and imagine a couple of leftists hearing it. I picture soy lattes being dropped in horror, and man-buns spontaneously unraveling themselves in outrage.

In fact, allow me to present a dramatization of that scene, using Gabriel’s actual words:

Gabriel: “[When I came in, Saunders was] assaulting [the employee]… and throwing stuff. I believe I saw him spit at her. And how I was raised, man, you don’t do that stuff. It was kind of ‘go time’ from there.”

Man-bun #1: “I know, right? ‘Go time’ meaning ‘time to go to my safe space and call my therapist!’”

Gabriel: “She didn’t seem like she could defend herself.”

Man-bun #2: “What? Is he saying that a woman is different than a man?!”

Man-bun#1: “And how did he even know that she’s a woman? What if she doesn’t identify as a woman?”

Man-bun #2: “Yeah! He could be guilty of mis-gendering they!”

Gabriel: “I did combat sports for a while, so I was completely controlling [him].”

Man-bun #1: “Eek! Toxic masculinity!”

Man-bun #2 (with one hand over his eyes, peeking between his fingers in terror): “Hey, the other guy is a person of color! This is a hate crime!”

Gabriel: “He was trying to bite me, and I didn’t want to punch him or anything. I didn’t want to hurt him too bad.”

Man-bun #1: “’Too bad?!’ Why were you hurting him at all?”

Man-bun #2: “He’s literally trying to keep a black man down! Racist colonizer!”

Gabriel (after being called a hero by the store’s owner): “All glory to God, man. He’s always protected me and put me in situations…that I can handle.”

Man-bun #1 (shocked silence):

Man-bun #2 (wide-eyed horror): “Did he…?”

Man-bun #1 (more shocked silence):

Man-bun #2 (in a high-pitched squeal): “He’s a white Christian nationalist Christo-fascist!”

Man-bun #1 (vomiting on his Birkenstocks): “Blluuuu-ugh!”

And, scene.

From that story – and I must warn you that this transition may give you the bends – I take you to the tale of Jack Petocz, a gay narcissist who grew up in Florida and spent his high school years during Ron DeSantis’ first term as governor, and yet learned nothing from that enlightened time.

Jack was a young activist, starting when – at 15 – he was “irritated by a local school board member who was, in his opinion, ‘recklessly tweeting COVID misinformation.” Because of course he was.

(By the way, I’m betting that the offensive “misinformation” included wacky ideas like COVID starting in a Chicom lab, partially funded by Tony Fauxci, and that wearing masks and getting multiple pokes of a magic elixir would render you both immune and immortal.)

He started organizing protests for every bad cause he could find. He held rallies protesting some schools’ attempts to keep child porn out of school libraries, and organized a state-wide school walk-out to protest RDS’ so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill (which, ironically, never mentioned the word “gay”).

On the day of that protest, despite having been told by the school principal to not distribute 200 gay pride flags, little Jacky… distributed 200 gay pride flags. And then was suspended from school.

Unexpectedly!

This bit of ass-hattery got him an interview on NBC news, where he said, “Waaahh! Bigotry! Sniffle. Homophobia! My feelings are hurt! How dare you? Waaahh!” (I’m paraphrasing slightly.)

He was also given some sort of virtue-signaling narcissism award from Teen Vogue, and parlayed that into a visit to DC, where he took selfies with Chuck Schumer and Imhotep Pelosi, and also one sandwiched in between Joe Biden and Que Mala Harris.

By the way, if you go to the Breitbart story on this, you’ll see those pictures. And as you look at his self-satisfied smirk – he looks like a less masculine Greta Thunberg – you will be seeing a SFPI (Simpson Face Punchability Index) score of 98. So you’ve been warned.

Fast forward to late March, and Petocz is now a student at Vanderbilt. (Because of course he is.) And he helped lead the pro-Hamas protest that involving a bunch of brats pushing their way into the chancellor’s office and conducting an obnoxious “sit-in.” (Because of course he did.)

If you watched the entire video of that preening cosplay production, you’ve got a stronger gag reflex than I do. But even watching a few minutes of it provided a perfect synopsis of everything that’s wrong with entitled adolescent social justice warriors.

A bunch of liberal white kids whose mommies and daddies are paying almost six figures per year for their “education” barge into a campus building, record themselves reading statements about how they are bravely standing up for the innocent Hamas freedom fighters. They lecture a black security guard about how he doesn’t understand racism and oppression. They demand that Vanderbilt makes them all queens for a day, and that Hamas be given more ammunition and permanent access to all future Israeli music festivals. (I’m paraphrasing slightly.)

They also demand food and water, because they apparently had not considered how peckish you can get when you are saving the entire world through your courageous activism. One female even demanded that one of her fellow protestors be allowed to leave and return after changing a tampon, which could otherwise cause toxic shock syndrome.

I am not making that up. (Full disclosure though: Rumors that the fresh-tampon-deprived fellow protestor was Jack Petocz have not been confirmed.)

Shockingly enough, Vanderbilt authorities actually terminated the protest by arresting 4 students (including Petocz!), and forcibly removing more than 20 others. Two weeks later, Vandy announced the disciplinary consequences: they expelled 3 students (including Petocz!), suspended 1, and put 22 others on probation.

And Jack’s wailing posts about this existential injustice were chef’s-kiss perfect!

“I’m Jack Petocz, a 19 y/o activist that’s been fighting for marginalized people for years. Yesterday, I was expelled from Vanderbilt for peacefully protesting the genocide in Palestine.”

He called himself a “passionate organizer.” He bemoaned Vandy’s horrible oppression of “students rallying together in compassion and love for those outside Vanderbilt’s ivory towers.”

He said, “I came to Vanderbilt with the dream of escaping the rampant bigotry and institutional repression I experienced in the Deep South. That dream has soured.”

What can you say to that?

Other than, “Come down off that cross, Jack, we can use the wood.”

Ugh.

There is only one greater gulf in our culture than the one between alpha-male Gabriel Pitzulo going all tumultuous on Daniel Saunders’ sorry arse and Jack Petocz pouting and whining like Ilhan Omar at a bar-mitzvah.

And that’s the gulf between actual Native Americans and Liz Warren. (Boom! Unexpected #wemustneverstopmockingher reference!)

Hamas delenda est!

Ready for a New Year (posted 1/1/24)

I hope that your year has started off as well as mine. Since we had covid on Christmas, we had our Christmas celebration on New Year’s Day, with Karen’s brothers and their families coming to the house to feast and exchange gifts.

So I started 2024 off with a Merry Christ-year! (Which I generally prefer to a Merry New-mas, though your holiday mileage may vary.)

As always, on the cusp of a new year, one’s mind naturally turns to marking the passage of time, and looking backwards and forwards simultaneously.

When I look back on 2023, I’m extremely grateful for many things happening in my personal life – disproportionately so, given the perilous condition our nation appears to be in: a relationship with my Creator who loves and forgives me; the patient, smokeshow wife; the healthy and thriving kids; the envy of canine-dom in the form of Cassie the Wonder Dog; the chance to live in a state with the best governor in the country, etc.

And though I’ve said it before, I’ve probably not said it enough: the chance to sound off on the Cautious Optimism site has been a source of great comfort and joy in my life. I mean that sincerely: comfort and joy! (Yes, I’m still in a Christmas mood, since we just celebrated today, and the 12 Days of Christmas extend through January 5^th.)

In December of 2016, the Great and Powerful CO invited me to contribute my occasional musings to this site, and since then I’ve had seven years of getting stuff off my chest, and lowering my blood pressure, and meeting so many great people. I can’t thank all of you enough!

If I can risk tainting the new year with a shameless plug…As regular readers know, when I post a new column here, I post the most recent column to my WordPress site, Martinsimpsonwriting.com. There you will find all of my columns going back to 12/16, as well as some pictures, a few short stories, and a few videos. If you like what you see there, you can click “subscribe,” and you’ll get an email notification each time a new column appears.

Looking forward, I’m going to be posting a handful of short stories I wrote during another life as a fiction writer, and a lot of pics of my (finally!) restored Victorian house, Rosewood. I’m also going to try to record and post at least one video a month on various topics of interest. (If anything is on your mind that you’d like to see discussed, please let me know.)

When I look forward to the next year in the life of our country, though, things are a lot more cloudy. In an election year when the stakes are so high and our national life so troubled and deteriorating, my fascination with politics – properly understood and undertaken – alternates with an increasing disgust with the grubby reality of politics as they are actually pursued.

When I’m in the latter mood, Wordsworth’s words sum up my instinctive distaste for public life: “The world is too much with us; late and soon/ Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.”

Since I’ve retired, I’m not as focused on getting or (hopefully!) spending. My big-picture concerns now require more focus on how I spend time than on how I spend money. And spending time thinking about politics and politicians can often seem a foolish expenditure indeed!

But as soon as I say that, I recognize that politics are shaping the world that my kids and future grandkids will live in, and so attention must be paid. Plus, it is therapeutic to mock dishonest pols and bad ideas. Besides, both Thomas Moore and C.S. Lewis said that the devil cannot stand to be mocked, and those guys knew a few things.

And if that applies to Satan, I’m sure it applies to his minions (i.e. most politicians) too.

But there will be a lot of time for mockery later. For now, I’d just like to point out at least one silver lining during our current national malaise.

Although some of our problems are definitely hard to solve – social security is going broke, our national debt is staggering, our universities need ground-up renovation – many of them really are not.

It’s amazing how many “crises” should be simple to solve, because they arise from logical errors that would be ended with the application of the most basic common sense. For example:

It’s not good to sterilize young people, or cut healthy body parts off because they are going through a phase of discomfort with their bodies and/or mental illness. (The defining characteristic of being young is going through phases, so don’t make permanent and irreversible physical changes!)

You get less of what you punish, and more of what you reward. So if you reward criminals – make excuses for their crimes, minimize their punishments (ridiculous plea deals, short or no sentences, no penalties) – you get more crime.

Giving a drunk a drink doesn’t help him, and most of our welfare system is the institutionalized form of buying alcohol for alcoholics. Stop that.

A country without a border cannot remain a country, and cutting illegal immigration by 95% is a very simple task. It’s very hard to stop the last 5% or so, but if you build physical barriers and man them with adequately armed officers, and then take into custody and either immediately jail and deport everyone you catch, the draw for future illegals will be stopped.

Law and order MUST be maintained throughout our society, and our current hands-off strategy seems literally insane to me. Allowing mobs of protestors to attack public and private buildings, and to close off major highways and bridges, and to terrify students and cops and paralyze major universities (just as allowing millions of illegals to break into our country and disperse throughout it) – all of these are voluntary choices.

Mind-bogglingly, inexplicably, and weapons-grade stupid choices!

Especially because, again, the solution is so simple and obvious, in every case:

When a-hole narcissists block a highway or bridge to paralyze a major city, give them a few quick warning honks, and then drive right through them. (If any of them suffer injuries but then have to wait a long time for an ambulance to reach them because of the congestion they’ve caused, they can use that writhing-in-agony time to reconsider their life choices.)

When pro-terrorist students riot and assault other students and university officials, expel them permanently and jail them immediately.

“But Martin,” I can hear you saying, “despite the brilliance of your words, the logic of your argument, your personal charisma, and (let’s not deny it) your knee-weakening physical attractiveness, we don’t have the resources or manpower to drive-over and pepper spray and jail and deport millions and millions of Biden-voting wastes of space!”

Yes, but we wouldn’t have to. We’d only have to demonstrate our determination to the first few troublemakers, “pour encourager les autres,” as the Frenchies say.

Picture this:

The first antifa thug in a crowd to throw a bottle at the cops gets a faceful of pepper spray and/or birdshot and then is cuffed and arrested…

The first BLM whitey-hater who storms a courthouse gets a bean-bag round to the groin and then is cuffed and arrested…

The first two arrogant morons who try to block traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge are partially squashed in a game of human Frogger, and if they survive that, are cuffed and arrested in the hospital…

How do you think their co-would-be-revolutionaries would react after seeing that?

Or how about this: What if the two gender-confused, identified-as-male-at-birth “leaders” of a clot of cosplaying grievance-studies majors who attack a pregnancy-support center or Supreme Court justice’s house were arrested and taken to jail. And once there, they were photographed and printed and tossed into a holding cell – with their frosted pink hair and facial piercings, wearing a “Queers for Palestine” t-shirt over a gender non-binary skort — with a dozen recidivist criminals.

And the next day, after their rich yet feckless parents have bailed them out, what if they limped back to the collective and told their tearful tales of prolapsed this and bruised that, and how they discovered a whole new meaning of “misgendering” in jail…

What do you think would happen to the attendance at the next hate-filled leftist assault on a public institution or building?

Okay, that last example might be going a little too far. On the other hand, if we have to err on the side of either letting the rioters destroy our society, or letting criminals open a can of macro-aggressions on their temporarily incarcerated carcasses, let’s go with Door #2.

To paraphrase Samuel Johnson, predictable and swift consequences will concentrate the mind of even the most mouth-breathing, AOC-IQ-level miscreants among us. So why haven’t we tried that lately?

Let’s learn the lessons of 2023, and make 2024 the year of re-instituting cause and effect, and reaping what you sow.

Hamas delenda est!