Well, O.J. Simpson is finally dead. And I’m sure that reminds us all of the old, well-known, cliched folk-saying: “Martin Simpson is NOT related to O.J. Simpson in any way.”
If I’ve heard that once, I’ve heard it a thousand times. And yet it still rings true, doesn’t it?
So in honor of the day, I’ll start with a Stupid Criminal story, and I’ve got to warn you: it contains some tumultuous conduct!
This one takes place in Bingham County, Idaho. Christine Jenneiahn (85) lives out in the boonies with her adult, disabled son, and at 2:00 a.m. on March 13th, Derek Condon (39, but no longer going on 40) broke into her house. He was wearing a ski mask and carrying a 9mm handgun, and he hit Christine, handcuffed her to a wooden chair in her living room, and threatened to kill her if she didn’t give him her valuables.
She told him there were two safes in the basement. When he went down to look, she dragged the chair she was handcuffed to into her bedroom, where she retrieved a pistol from under her pillow. Because: Idaho!
She then dragged her chair back into the living room and hid the gun beside her, hoping she wouldn’t have to use it. But when Condon discovered her disabled son, he got mad at her for not telling him the son was there. He started threatening her again while he was rummaging around the house, so she pulled out the gun and shot him twice.
Condon emptied his gun at her, “hitting her multiple times in her abdomen, leg, arm and chest.” She fell to the floor, and lay there for 10 hours until her son came into the room and gave her a phone to call 911.
Condon made it to the kitchen before he fell, as dead as O.J. Simpson. (Who, I may not have mentioned, is not kin to me.)
There are several surprising parts to this story, including the fact that after being handcuffed, an 85-year-old woman could drag her chair into another room to get her gun, and also that she was shot multiple times, but survived.
Granny’s got a little something I like to call “grit!”
But the most shocking part is her choice of firearm. No little old-West-style derringer or dainty .22 for Miss Christine. She’s got a .357 magnum!
Sure, that’s not a .44. (Which, if I remember my Clint Eastwood films correctly – and I think that I do – is “the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off.”)
But it’s not nothin’. And in this case, it has proved the truth of yet another hoary cliché – and one only slightly less well known than “Martin Simpson is no relation to O.J. Simpson” – “That iron get ya mind right!”
It certainly did so for the late and unlamented Derek Condon. If he had survived, I’d tell him that he should be extra ashamed of himself for trying to victimize an old lady. Since he didn’t, I’ll just say RII (rest in ignominy).
The only downside of the story is that if Idaho has the same kind of voter integrity safeguards in place as those in Chicago, NYC or Philly, he’ll be casting several votes for Biden in November.
Speaking of which, at 85, Granny Christine is 4 years OLDER than Joe Biden. Does anybody in Christendom believe that in the same situation, Joey Gaffes would have been able to do anything she did in this story?
He wouldn’t have been able to drag his own carcass into another room, let alone dragging a chair along with him. And if he had somehow made it into the bedroom, he would have forgotten what he went in there for.
And if, against all odds, he’d been able to find and hold the 357 up, the recoil from the first shot would have sent him tumbling backwards and probably broken multiple ribs, both arms and a hip.
Changing topics, I’d like to introduce yet another new and hopefully recurring category in my columns: Proof that God has a Sense of Humor.
The inaugural example comes from yesterday, when South Carolina Democrat Jim Clyburn appeared on a panel discussion on MSNBC (where Democracy Dies in a Smothering Fog of Imbecility™). He was there to push the economic dumpster fire that is… Bidenomics!
He started by admitting that people are concerned with high inflation, but then tried to pivot. “But what we’ve got to get them to see is that inflation today is about 40 percent of what it was when Joe Biden took office. And so the inflation rates are down…” Followed by another two minutes on the theme of “don’t believe your lyin’ eyes!”
I should note that he appeared on screen shot from the mid-chest up, so I could not say for certain that his pants ignited during the interview. But if I had to guess…
So, Clyburn insists that inflation is dropping like a rock, and all will be well. Because: Bidenomics!
And then, Mika cuts directly to breaking news: “The Consumer Price Index increased at a faster than unexpected pace last month, a signal that inflation remains stubbornly high.”
She threw to Andrew Sorkin, who looked like someone had just urinated in his kale smoothie as he had to explain that, “We’ve been on this broadcast for months now about how the trendline was in Biden’s favor. Today I imagine they’re throwing a party in Mar-a-Lago.”
The entire segment was just more proof of what I’ve always said: God hates Jim Clyburn.
Okay, I’ve never said that. And – full disclosure – I can’t actually claim to know the mind of God. But ever since Clyburn saved Biden’s campaign for the nomination in 2020 and foisted his horrific presidency on our beleaguered nation, I would guess that God is likely carrying a grudge.
Anyway, for one rare moment, it was fun to watch MSNBC. We’re all used to watching leftists’ promises and predictions proven to be laughably wrong (unexpectedly!), but we rarely get a chance to see them implode instantaneously, on live tv.
Coincidentally, when Mika cut back to the studio, Jim Clyburn was nowhere to be seen. Rumors that he was rushed to the burn unit of a nearby hospital for treatment of “the results of a first-degree, trouser-related combustion incident” have not been confirmed.
Okay, there are more stories to get to, but I’ve only got room for one more, and I couldn’t let this one slide by without comment. Even though I’m sure most of you have heard all about it.
I’m talking about congress-dunce Sheila Jackson Lee (of guess which party), formerly of the Science Committee, and the Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee, speaking to a bunch of school kids on the occasion of the eclipse.
Some of you have called me a hilarious genius, and I’ve been known to take creative flights of fancy when writing about loony lefties.
But even if I had ingested the same mushrooms that guitar genius Billy Strings took before he tore through his epic “Dust in a Baggie” in that cell phone video in somebody’s rec room (if you haven’t seen that yet, c’mon man!), I could not have come up with the following quote, which I swear to you is directly from Lee’s mouth:
“[Unintelligible] provide unique light and energy so that you have the energy of the moon at night, and sometimes you’ve heard the word ‘full moon,’ sometimes you need to take the opportunity just to come out and see a full moon is that complete rounded circle, which is made up mostly of gasses.”
“And that’s why the question is why or how could we as humans could live on the moon. Are the gasses such that we could do that? The sun is a mighty powerful heat, and it’s almost impossible to go near the sun. The moon is more manageable.”
Un-freaking-quote. And yes, she had us all at “unintelligible.”
As I mentioned in a previous column, my youngest daughter is near completion of two undergrad degrees, in planetary science and astrophysics, with an additional minor in regular old physics. This summer she’ll be doing a 10-week undergrad research internship in astrophysics at UC Boulder, and will hopefully return there next year to start a PhD.
(And not to brag, but I once did quite well in Algebra II.)
So I called her to fact-check Sheila Jackson Lee.
I asked her if it is true that “the moon is made up mostly of gasses.” The line was quiet, but just in case the call hadn’t dropped, I followed up by asking her if “the sun is a mighty powerful heat,” so much so that “it’s almost impossible to go near” it?
She hung up on me, but I swear I could hear her face palm all the way from her dorm on the space coast to my home library at Stately Simpson Manor.
To recap what we’ve learned here today:
Don’t get in a gunfight with a 357-magnum-packing octogenarian.
God hates Jim Clyburn.
Our elected leaders are morons.
And my amazing daughters – much like myself – have no genealogical connection to O.J. Simpson whatsoever.
Hamas delenda est!
Martin Simpson 