Tag: hezbollah

Correction re: Mamdani, the MSM Love Hezbollah & Hate DeSantis (posted 8/15/15)

Okay, so I made a mistake in Wednesday’s column about Commie Mamdani and his campaign to give the benighted voters of NYC what they are asking for, good and hard, and sans lubrication. 

I mistakenly said that he was born in Ghana, when he was actually born in Uganda. 

In my defense, both of those names share many of the same letters.  Also, I’m not totally convinced that they are actual countries, and if they are, I’m guessing that they are very similar.  I mean, it’s not like I said he was born in Switzerland, when he was born in Uganda. 

(“Martin,” nobody is asking, “is that a fine Ugandan timepiece you’re wearing on your wrist, as you savor that decadent Ugandan chocolate?”  And I am not replying, “Remember when that Swiss leader ate that guy from a rival canton just a few short decades ago?”)

Still, I can’t just go around making mistakes, like a mere mortal.  So I hereby confess my error, take full responsibility, and ask that in case the Nobel committee was contemplating awarding me one of their prizes for Wednesday’s column – which in a sane world they would be – they hold off on that.  At least until they can read some of my upcoming Nobel-worth columns.

Now if only we could get the WAPO and NY Times to do their own mea culpa, and return the Pulitzers they gave themselves for getting the Russia collusion hoax story wrong, and the “Hunter’s laptop is Russian disinfo” story wrong, and the “Joe Biden is a cognitive marvel, and fully prepared to serve another term” story wrong, and…

Today I’ve got several “we don’t hate the media enough” stories for you, starting with the AP, which published a story last week that cast the Hezbollah terrorists on the receiving end of Israel’s amazing pager attack as sympathetic victims. 

To be fair, the story did admit that even Hezbollah “acknowledged that most of those wounded and killed were its fighters and personnel.”   Nevertheless, the story interviews six survivors, five of whom – if we can trust the writers even on this point – are anomalies and exceptions: two women, two children, and one “preacher,” in addition to an admitted “fighter.”  (I’m guessing that the preacher wasn’t preaching the Gospel, or the Torah, or the teachings of the Dalai Lama.)

The fighter is presented in a shocking image, with his disturbing-looking glass eye.  (He’d be much better off wearing an eye patch, but since Israeli badass Moshe Dayan wore one of those after losing an eye in battle, the Hezbollah Jew-hater probably wouldn’t wear one, just out of spite.)

(By the way, “Moshe Dayan” is probably Hebrew for “Uncle Bob,” for all I know.)

The story details the one-eyed terrorist’s wounds, noting that “he can no longer play football.”  If they were striving for accuracy, they would have followed that with, “Of course, he could never have played football anyway, because he lives in a backward society that only plays soccer.”

There are horrible pictures of the wounds of both women and a 12-year-old boy, and heartstring-tugging descriptions of the gory details. 

But the story is at least minimally honest enough to tangentially reveal the real problems with these people it so badly wants us to sympathize with.  Both women and the fighter are pictured with images – on their walls or on their phones – of Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah terrorist who died in a big, beautiful Israeli strike, surrounded by terrorist commanders.  One woman has spoken at Hezbollah religious gatherings to boost morale, and the 12-year-old boy is a member of the Hezbollah scouts (think: Hitler Youth for Arab jihadis). 

The key sentences were mentioned early on, and in passing: “The survivors expressed ongoing support for Hezbollah but acknowledged the security breach. They blamed Israel for their wounds.” 

Because of course they did. 

This is why you can’t have nice things, “Palestinians.”  Your heroes tortured, raped and murdered helpless Israeli men, women and children, and after you reaped just a small portion of what you have sown, you still think of yourself as victims, support the killers, and hate the Jews.

Good luck with all that.

Not content to let the AP hog all of the pro-terrorist propaganda glory, other legacy media rags jumped on a different slanderous story out of Gaza.  This was the tale of an Israeli air strike that killed a “journalist” named Anas (and if you noticed that that name is only one vowel off, you’re right) al-Sharif.  One outlet after another led with claims that al-Sharif was a journalist, and only noted later that the IDF “alleged” that he was a member of Hamas. 

PBS and NPR – man, am I glad that we just cut off their taxpayer funding! – both took that tack. NPR said that “press advocates described [al-Sharif’s death] as retribution against those documenting the war in Gaza.”  (If by “documenting” you mean “propagandizing about.”)  They then reported that the IDF said that al-Sharif was a Hamas fighter, “an allegation that Al Jazeera and al-Sharif had previously dismissed as baseless.” 

Shocking! 

By the way, if I were a PR rep for the IDF, I would have headlined my press release, “We shot the Sharif, but we did not shoot a journalist.”  (Hat tip to Bob Marley.)

Newsweek – which I was surprised to find is still a thing that exists – was typical of the biased MSM approach.  They didn’t just present al-Sharif’s identity as a “he said/they said” story; they took sides by calling him a journalist, and then skeptically reporting the IDF’s “allegations.”  But as you read their own story, you see that the only evidence they cite for al-Sharif NOT being a Hamasnik is the denials from his side. 

Meanwhile, they start clearing their throat and trying to hurry past the IDF’s claims and evidence, as you will see in this accurate re-enactment, made of actual details from the Newsweek story:

IDF spokesman:  Al-Sharif served as the head of a terrorist cell in the Hamas terrorist organization that was responsible for advancing rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops.

Multiply-pierced Columbia Undergrad (MPCU) wearing a keffiyeh:  Well, anyone can claim somebody is in Hamas, but if that were true, wouldn’t they have military documents to back that up?  Huh?  Wouldn’t they?  I mean, if he were really—

IDF spokesman: Here are Hamas documents showing that al-Sharif was a member, includ—

MPCU: Yeah, right!  If those docs were legit, they’d list his rank, salary and military ID number!

IDF spokesman: Let me finish.  …including his rank, salary, and military ID number.

MPCU: Crap!

IDF: We also have a Hamas injury report for al-Sharif from 2017.

MPCU: Oh, come on!  If you had a report like that, you’d have to know which specific battalion he was from. Which you don’t.

IDF:  As a matter of fact, it’s right here.  He was a member of the Hamas East Jabaliya Battalion.

MPCU:  Oy vey.

IDF: What did you say?

MPCU (panicking): I mean, oh crap!  (He dabs at some sweat with his keffiyeh.)  Look, it’s easy enough to make wild allegations about some anonymous, low-level foot soldier.  I mean, it’s not like you’ve got a picture of him being hugged by and shaking hands with late Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in a ballroom filled with Hamas big shots.

IDF: It’s funny you mention that…

MPCU: Oh, crap…

IDF: …because if you’ll look at the screen behind me, you’ll see a picture of Anus al-Sharif being hugged by and shaking hands with late Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in a ballroom full of Hamas big shots.

MPCU (face-palming himself and muttering):  His name is “Anas.”

IDF: Is it, though?

And, scene.   


Finally, you’ve probably seen the domestic story that gave the pro-Hamas MSM a run for their money, bias-wise: the Daily Beast piece that ran under the title, “Veterans Beg Ron DeSantis to Stop Killing Them.”

You read that right.  Veteran Ron DeSantis has apparently gone rogue, and is now murdering veterans in Florida!  If you don’t believe me, read the first sentence of the story: “Ron DeSantis is under fire for turning against his fellow service members and letting executioners slaughter five veterans this year alone.”

Good lord!   Are these gangland executions, or possibly some kind of barbaric “feed them to the dinosaurs” type killings you might hear about at Alligator Alcatraz?

Nope.  The next paragraph mentions that Florida carries out the death penalty by either lethal injections or the electric chair, and the truth begins to come out. 

This left-wing hack writer is talking about people who were once in the military, but who then pursued an exciting second career in beating, raping and murdering people.  One of them – Bobby Joe Long – was a serial rapist and killer with at least 12 victims on his record, though the writer doesn’t mention that.

The story is so transparently ridiculous that it was quickly ratioed into oblivion.  And DeSantis’ Comms director, when asked for comment, administered the verbal gut punch perfectly, saying “A simple trick to avoid execution in Florida is to not murder people.” 

That sounds just crazy enough to work!

Ugh!  We truly don’t hate the media enough. 

But the good news is that they’re not getting away with it anymore.  Their ratings are terrible, their audiences are shrinking, and the only ones who take them seriously are the far-left, ineducable, dead-end partisans.

The legacy media has worked long and hard to ruin their reputations, and they are now reaping the fruits of their labors.

Unexpectedly!

Hamas delenda est!

Kamala’s Wheels Come Off, & Israel Continues On Its Roll (posted 11/1/24)

Could Bill Clinton be collaborating with Joe Biden to sink Kamala’s campaign? 

First there was his incredibly damaging statement a few weeks ago that Laken Riley would still be alive if her illegal alien murderer had been vetted and kept out of the country, which was greeted by an echoing cry of, “WTF?!!” from Kamala HQ.

And this week he goes to Michigan, just a day after Kamala almost sliced herself to ribbons by grabbing a sharp rod during a factory tour.  (“Can I touch that rod?  Can I TOUCH that ROD?  CAN I TOUCH THAT ROD?!”) (And yes, the Willie Brown jokes are basically writing themselves at this point.)

This time the old horn-dog said, “I don’t think it’s right to say that people have to vote for Donald Trump because the economy was better then.”  And the partisan crowd moaned.  Meanwhile, whoever is running Kamala’s campaign sent an urgent text to ol’ Handsy McGroperton: “Stop helping, Bill!”

Also could there be a funnier headline than, “Biden Bites Several Babies at WH Halloween Party?”  I mean sure, he’s probably just gumming them, which is repulsive enough.  But man o’Manischewitz, if Trump wins this thing it will have been the best campaign ever! 

Just think of the sound bites that should live in infamy: “Your supporters are garbage!”  “They’re eating the dogs; they’re eating the cats!” “Biden is biting babies!”  Oh, the humanity!

Meanwhile, in another story that should be devastating to Kamala’s campaign if it were only getting wider airplay, it turns out that a huge majority of the scumbags who were caught looting in the aftermath of the last two hurricanes in Florida were… wait for it… alleged salt-of-the-earth immigrants!

Unexpectedly!

And by “immigrants” I mean “Biden/Harris-enabled ILLEGAL immigrants.”  The NY Post has the story – and the stats – from the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office: of the 45 looters rounded up on various robbery charges, 41 were illegals.  41 out of 45! 

Another stat, which I’m unpleasantly surprised by, is that of another 196 people who “were caught in the area under suspicious circumstances and questioned by deputies but had to be released due to lack of probable cause,” 163 were illegals. 

The disappointing part is that even in the free state of Florida, we’re still not detaining illegals just because they broke our laws to get here.  Even if there was insufficient probable cause to hold them for their looter-adjacent behavior, if they’re here illegally, they should still be deported!

Am I saying that all illegals found here, especially if they’ve committed additional crimes, should be summarily kicked out, possibly with the trigger finger on their right hands clipped off so that we can recognize them if they ever try to sneak back in again?

I’m not necessarily saying that last part for sure.  But – say it with me, Que Mala – I think we should have that conversation!

Okay, on to my long-delayed take on the latest out of Israel, which has been mostly a cavalcade of good news. 

In one area after another, the IDF has been making terrorists dead, and forcing their twitchy, involuntarily incontinent surviving comrades to run and hide, thus protecting the chastity of the region’s many herds of long-suffering goats. 

(“Bleat” means “bleat,” Achmed! Which is goat-talk for, “No means no!”)

(This message provided by RASA – Ruminants Against Sexual Assault™ — a 501(c)(3) organization.  Please give generously.)

I’ll get to some of the best missile/drone strikes in a minute, but first I must give kudos to an unusual attack on Hezbollah’s ability to finance their various Jew-killing endeavors. 

Since Western nations have been sanctioning Hezbollah’s more traditional assets (international bank accounts, etc.), they’ve been forced to keep a bunch of their ill-gotten gains in the form of paper money and gold, stashed throughout the territories they control.

On October 20th, IDF missiles destroyed one underground vault containing millions of dollars.  Then they cleverly announced that there is another such vault under the Al Sahel Hospital in Beirut which contains “as much as half a billion dollars in cash and gold.”  Their spokesman pointed out that, “This money could and still can be used to rebuild the state of Lebanon.” 

That is a brilliant move for several reasons: 

1. It freaks out the terrorists by providing more evidence of just how much the Israelis know about them and their every move. 

2. It incentivizes everyday Lebanese to both be pissed at Hezbollah, and possibly to stage a raid to steal that fortune back.  And if nobody is writing a screenplay for a heist movie – call it some Islamic variation on “Ocean’s 11” – they’re leaving money on the table. (I picture someone dressed in a sexy goat suit providing a honey-trap distraction to lure several Hezbollah fighters away from the hospital entrance they’re guarding.  Ooh, and a high-speed donkey-cart chase through the rubble-clogged streets of Beirut, possibly accompanied by the “Mission Impossible” theme song, if the producers can afford copyright!) 

3. It also incentivizes nervous Hezbollah creeps to possibly try to move the treasure, which would make them vulnerable to raids from other Lebanese on the road – another screenplay possibility! – and to spying Israeli drones which could follow and learn the new location it gets sent to, and also possibly to blow up that location as soon as the stolen money arrives.

But the wily Hebrews weren’t just playin 4-D chess with their heist-movie shenanigans; they’ve also continued to go all “Death from the Skies!” on the smelly terrorists with missiles and drone strikes.

They had already dropped a building on Nasrallah’s successor Hashem Safieddine a few weeks after he got the top job, while simultaneously taking out 24 other top Hezbollah villains, including the head of Hezbollah’s “intelligence” branch (oxymoron alert!), Ali Hussein Hazima.

Then, last Wednesday, Israel took out Mohamad Abu Itiwi with a missile strike.  Itiwi had a demon’s resume: commander of Hamas’ “elite” Nukhba force; personally responsible for “contributing to the deaths of a least 370 victims” during the cowardly 10/7 attack; led the infamous “bomb shelter slaughter,” during which his men tossed hand-grenades into a shelter filled mostly with women and children.

Most shamefully of all, he was also an employee of the United Nations, specifically their “Relief and Works Agency” for “Palestinian” “refugees” (UNRWA), which is just one of many corrupt UN groups through which our tax dollars have flowed to help the jihadis in Hamas.  (Until, in Itiwi’s case, October 23rd, when the IDF made the world a better place by giving him a ballistic enema.) 

Itiwi served one good purpose, which was to give Israel one more reason to officially kick UNRWA out of the country this week.  Of course that set off a round of wailing and gnashing of teeth from the “Peace Through Appeasement” crowd, thus proving Israel’s decision correct.

But wait, there’s more! 

The IDF has released video of many of their targeted strikes on Hezbollah strongholds throughout southern Lebanon.  (Which I enjoy watching with headphones on and “Enter Sandman” blasting.  Sleep with one eye open, jihadis!)

The most dramatic one shows a massive Hezbollah underground compound which stretched across two small hillsides and a valley between them.  When the munitions hit, at least 8 different spots explode upward, with geysers of debris and plumes of smoke rising from the valley and both hillsides.

Of course the biggest story of the last week was Israel’s air attack on Iran, in retaliation for the 180 missiles Iran fired at Israel at the beginning of the month.  Most of Iran’s missiles were shot down, and they collectively did very little damage to Israel, but that was not the case when Israel hit back.

They used 100 fighter jets to carry out three waves of attacks, focusing at first on Iran’s air defenses, and then on 20 missile and drone facilities.  I had hoped that they’d target Iran’s nuclear enrichment locations, but by taking out Iran’s air defense, Israel has left that step as an option for future strikes, should Iran not have learned the FAFO lesson that the IDF just gave them.    

By the way, leave it to the Jews to come up with a very cool Old Testament reference as a code name for their multi-wave air attack: “Days of Repentance.”  (That’s not as sweet as “Operation Grim Beeper.”  But I think that one was made up.)

They also got an added bonus from their attack, in the form of giving the Russians a black eye.  Hezbollah had bought and installed four Russian-made S-300 air defense systems.  Israel took one of them out in a retaliation raid on Iran this summer, and they took out the remaining three last week.   

After that raid, reports are coming out of Lebanon that many Hezbollah fighters are defecting or fleeing to Syria, which only makes sense.  Most of their chain of command are either dead or mangled, they can’t communicate because of the fear of groin-shredding communication devices, and their money stashes are getting blown up.

One typical morale-draining story happened last weekend.  The Hezbo commander of the Bint Jbeil Area (which I thought was on the planet Klingon, but apparently not) – Jafar Maatouk (I loved him in the Lion King!) – underwent SOMD (sudden-onset molecular disassembly) when an IAF missile hit him. 

The next day the new commander and his head of artillery – no names are given in the report, but I’m assuming they’re Curly and Moe – met the same fate.

So far no one has stepped up to become the new Grand Poobah of Bint Jbeil. 

Unexpectedly!  

Speaking of which, Hezbollah just announced who drew the short straw, and is now the new leader of their group.  He’s named Naim Qassem, and in every video clip I’ve seen of him, he looks really nervous.  (My Arabic is a little rusty, but unless I’ve missed my guess, “Naim” means “not” and “Qassem” means “for long.”)  

I swear that I wrote that last joke when I first drafted this column a few days ago. 

But great minds must think alike, because the guy in charge of the IDF gave a press conference in which he put up a picture of Qassem with the caption: “Temporary Appointment.  Not for Long.” 

Yes!  Don’t buy any green bananas, Naim.

Have a good weekend everybody.

Hamas delenda est!

On the Anniversary of 10/7, Terrorists Try to Replace Leaders Faster than the IDF Can Kill Them (posted 10/7/24)

Once again, events are happening too fast for me to keep up with.  The presidential campaigns are accelerating, the polls remain tight, and FEMA’s relief efforts in the wake of Helene are being badly bungled, in keeping with Biden-Harris’ sterling record over the last four years.

Meanwhile, my oldest daughter remains in the hospital in Denver – she’s making progress and doing well, and thanks for your continued prayers — and now it’s my youngest daughter’s turn to be in the path of a second storm in as many weeks.  Thankfully she’s on the Atlantic coast, and so Milton will likely be a tropical storm rather than a hurricane by the time it reaches her campus. 

Additionally, I’ve noticed a moment in the Vance-Walz debate that I’d over-looked before, and I also need to take some well-deserved shots at Que Mala’s beta-boy role-model husband, Doug Emhoff. 

But I’m going to have to save all that for a Wednesday column, because today is the anniversary of the evil attacks on Israel last October, and attention must be paid.

Regular readers know that I’m a big fan of Israel’s approach over the last several months: they’re ignoring Biden and the Democrats’ advice and input – everywhere and at all times a wise move! – and they’ve been pursuing terrorists with the wrath of an Old Testament God.  (Some might even say THE Old Testament God.) 

I admire the way they’ve minimized civilian casualties, achieving a civilians-to-enemy-combatants-killed ratio far lower than in any war in all of history, including the ones we’ve waged during our own country’s history. 

And I love the way they’ve mixed traditional arms and operations with high-tech tweaks, psychological warfare, and hilarious, intelligence-aided trickery to take out the top levels of Hamas and Hezbollah.  The latest details came out in a story this weekend, explaining how the weapons geeks in Israel had wired the explosive pagers such that an authentication message appeared on the screens of those pagers that didn’t detonate in pockets.

The authentication process to read the page required the users to touch two different buttons on both sides of the pagers, which meant that many of the terrorists who received the page had both of their hands mangled or blown off, along with being blinded if they were holding the pager close to their faces when they pressed those buttons. 

It’s almost enough to make you feel sorry for them, until you remember who they are, and what they did to end up holding those pagers in the first place.  

The frequency of Israel’s successes is making it hard to keep up with the latest news.  I remember that during the Iraq war, we made a deck of cards featuring the 52 top scumbags in Saddam’s regime.  As our forces advanced, we started taking playing cards off the table.

That wouldn’t work for Israel, though, because they’d be changing out cards faster than a casino trying to cool off a gambler on a hot streak at the blackjack table.  In just two air strikes – the one that took out Nasrallah and his deputies and the one the week before that – they wiped out the equivalent of three entire suits of cards.      

Each day I come across a story about the latest Hezbollah boss to assume rubble temperature.  These guys are dropping like old Soviet commies in the Reagan era.  We try to set up a phone call with Achmed Brezhnev, only to find out that he’s been replaced with Muhammad Andropov, and before Tony Blinken can catch a flight over to kiss his butt, he’s replaced by Hassan Chernenko. 

Last Wednesday, Israel located Khider al-Shaebia, the terrorist responsible for the rocket attack on 7/27 that killed 12 Druze children playing soccer.  Apparently al-Shaebia wasn’t carrying a detonating pager in his pocket on 9/17, because he didn’t get turned into the Queen of al-Shaebia that day.  So the IDF had to eliminate him the old-fashioned way: with an airstrike. 

The latest head of Hezbollah was Hashem Safi Al-Din, who enjoyed a tenure of 7 days in office before experiencing rapid molecular disassembly last Friday, courtesy of an IDF air strike.  Several of his likely successor candidates are high-ranking members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Fortunately, they were gathered around Al-Din when the clock struck Boom!     

At this point, I’d love to be a fly on the shell-pocked wall, observing a bunch of the remaining, twitchy Hezbo commanders meeting to decide the next leader.  I don’t know how they do that in the first place.  It’s not like they’ve got a phone chain they can use.  And I’m guessing that emails or zoom calls are out, too.

But however they put the word out, they somehow end up cowering around a folding table with one leg missing under a half-collapsed parking garage down a rubble-strewn alley.  I’m picturing it goes something like this:

Weird Beard #1: You’ve probably already heard that Muhammad Abdul Aziz was killed by the Jewish pig-dogs. 

Weird Beard #2:  Oh no!   How’d they get him?  Exploding pager?  Exploding radio?

WB#1:  Poisoned hummus.  (One guy starts spitting violently.)  What are you doing?

Spitting Guy:  I just ate some hummus. 

WB#3:  We ALL just ate hummus.  The Jews haven’t poisoned all the hummus in Lebanon.

WB#2:  Are you sure?  

(They all look at each other uncertainly.) 

WB#4:  I thought Muhammad Abdul Aziz got killed when his scooter exploded.

WB#1:  No, that was Abdul Aziz Muhammad.  He died last Thursday.  We’re talking about Muhammad Abdul Aziz.  He was halfway through a romantic dinner with his goat bride when he pitched down face-first in his bowl of hummus.

WB#5:  I thought he was blown up when he knelt on an explosive prayer rug?

WB#6:  No, that was Mohammad Aziz Abdul, last Friday.  The hummus thing was this Monday.

WB#2:  Are you sure?  Because I thought—

WB#1:  Okay look.  For the last time, here’s the rundown:

A week ago Friday, Hassan Nasrallah got a building dropped on him, along with a half-dozen other Nasrallah cousins and brothers, two of his brother’s-in-law, and his father-in-law.

On Saturday, Muhammad Suleiman was named as his replacement.  When he went to his brother Abdul Suleiman’s house on Sunday to announce the good news, a ring doorbell that the Jews had installed two months ago blew his head off. 

Abdul became the leader, but on Wednesday he used a q-tip that Mossad had coated with napalm, and his head caught fire.

Hassan Suleiman was elected on Thursday, but on Saturday he found—

WB#5 (snapping his fingers and pointing): The kosher cobra in the toilet!

WB#1 (sighing): Yes, the cobra in the toilet.  Then Hassan Abdul took over, and he stayed in his house until Wednesday, when someone slipped a copy of the Beirut Post under his front door.

(The men in the circle looked at each other.) 

WB#3: Self-igniting newspaper?

WB#4: Poisoned newsprint ink?

WB#6: Oh, I know!  The paper had the transcript of a Kamala Harris interview, and halfway through reading it he shot himself in the head because he couldn’t stand it any more?          

WB#1 (shaking his head):  Exploding eyeglasses, courtesy of Shin Bet Optometrists.

Then it was Abdul Aziz Muhammad on the scooter on Thursday, then Muhammad Aziz Abdul with the detonating prayer rug last Friday, then Muhammad Abdul Aziz with the poison hummus on Monday.

WB#2:  So now who’s up? 

Everyone looks at everybody else, then most of them stare at their sandals, or at the ceiling, or out into the alley, whistling softly.

WB#1 (pulling out a bunch of straws, snapping one off, then mixing them up and holding his hand out with their ends sticking out) Everybody pick one.

They all choose with shaking hands, and Muhammad Muhammad Aziz pulls the short one.  He sighs deeply, while everyone bows their head to him and calls him “Sheik.” 

MMA: Great.  Let me ask one favor though.  Whatever you do, when you are setting up the seating chart for my funeral, don’t seat my goat wife anywhere near my goat mistress.  They do not get along, and I don’t want trouble.    

And, scene. 

On this somber anniversary, I wish fitful sleep, haunted dreams and swift justice for the Iranian government, Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis.  For the Israelis, I wish good luck and good hunting, and the return of the remaining hostages.

Hamas delenda est!

Israel Goes Michael Corleone on Its Enemies, and J.D. Vance Shines in the VP Debate (posted 10/4/24)

Before I get started, thank you all so much for your kind words and prayers for Katie!  She is continuing to improve, if not as quickly as we’d all like. 

I’ve learned something new about surgeries and the human body.  It turns out that after intestinal surgery, your bowel needs to “wake up” before you can eat solid food and get everything going again.  Apparently every patient is different in this respect, and generally speaking, the more the surgeons had to handle your intestines and work on them, the longer it takes to get to the post-surgery “waking up” part.

Katie said that her surgeons “pulled out and handled my entire bowel before throwing it back in,” which is why she’s not yet been able to start eating normally again. 

I didn’t appreciate her word choice there – I would prefer “…before lovingly and gently putting it back in place” over “throwing it back in” – but she has been decreasing her pain meds and moving around more.   We’re just waiting for everything to wake up.

So now I’ve learned that my daughter has at least one flaw: a drowsy bowel.  (And no, if you’re thinking of starting a garage band and are looking for a name, I do not recommend “Katie and the Drowsy Bowels.” Even though it does sound sort of cool.)

Speaking of drowsy bowels – I know: very graceful transition – how about that Joe Biden?  Even though he’s shuffled off this mortal coil, he’s still keeping his unblemished “wrong about every foreign policy decision he’s ever made” losing streak.

This time he’s very concerned that Israel has been taking down terrorists like Ted Kennedy knocking down rum-and-Cokes at an open bar.  He once again called for the Israelis to grant the terrorists a cease-fire.  You know, like the ones we gave Hitler in April of 1945, and the Japanese in Hiroshima and Nagasaki that August.   

Biden has perversely made Trump’s prediction from 2015 come true: In his eyes the Jews are doing too well lately, and he’s saying, “No! Please!  We’re tired of winning. It’s too much winning!”  

Within a couple of days of Hassan Nasrallah’s death – reportedly via many 2000-pound “bunker buster” bombs – the IDF also took out Nasrallah’s brother-in-law, as well as hitting another building where Hashem Safieddine, who is now presumed but not confirmed dead.

Hashem – his friends called him “Hash,” which is what he hopefully looks like now – was a cousin of Nasrallah’s, and one of the senior leaders most likely to be his successor.  Which appears to be a temp position, now that Netanyahu is ignoring Joey Gaffes, and is busily engaged in a carnival game of “whack-a-turban” with the leadership of Hamas and Hezbollah.

It is darkly comic to see hapless Antony Blinken trying to negotiate with what one news report called “the remnants of Hezbollah.”  Who could he possibly even be talking to?  I doubt that anybody who was anyone in Hezbollah’s higher ranks is still answering his phone, even assuming his answering hand is still attached to his body! 

Which means that Blinken is likely standing around near a mosque, talking to the first Tom, Dick or Achmed who will give him the time of day.  That’s what Biden’s vaunted diplomatic strategy has come to: the lead guitarist for the unknown band “Ablinken” (I’m not making that up), “negotiating” with a slow-witted, one-handed assistant goat-wrangler who is now the highest-ranking surviving member of Hezbo terrorist union Local 157. 

I love it!  A few months ago, Netanyahu was fighting for his political life.  Now he’s Michael Corleone, settling all the family business as he attends his nephew’s bris. 

Mohammed “Moe” Green gets shot through his glasses by IDF commandos.  The Mossad traps Hezbo’s top drone guy in a revolving door and then beeps the exploding pager in his pocket.  Shin Bet catches Abdul Tattaglia in bed with a goat and machine-guns them both. 

Two Israeli soldiers dressed like Muslim Virtue Police gun down Bilal Barzini on the steps of a Sharia Court-house . 

Nasrallah himself (played by Abe Vigoda in a keffiyeh), when confronted by a senior IDF commander, says, “Tell Bibi it was only business.  Jihadi business.  Can you get me off the hook?  For old times’ sake?”  And the commander says, “Can’t do it, Hassan.”  And then leaves the building right before the bunker buster hits. 

And now the weird beards running Iran are apparently as imbecilic as the former leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, because they fired 180 missiles into Israel, hitting very little, but giving the Israelis the justification (as though they didn’t already have it) to go simultaneously high-tech and Old Testament on their evil arses.

I can’t wait to see what Israel does next.  But if I were working at an Iranian nuclear facility or missile battery, I’d consider calling in sick, like Carlo when Sonny was set up for the toll booth massacre.   

One other positive development was the reaction of many Lebanese and Syrians when the Jews whacked Nasrallah: they were passing out candies and celebrating in the streets!  I’m sure that doesn’t mean that all of those people are enlightened Jeffersonian democrats and philosemites.  They might just be a different brand of Muslim, glad because some of the “bad” Muslims got the crotch-detonating pager treatment.

But still, I was reminded of the mobs of Gazans celebrating on October 7th.  They were celebrating and spitting on the corpses of poor Jewish girls whom their horrible co-religionists had raped and murdered, and then paraded through their streets.  So good riddance to them, and good luck to the Syrians and Lebanese.

In domestic news, I was thrilled with J.D. Vance’s debate performance! He did everything I’d wished that Trump would do in his debate: kept his cool, stuck to specifics, and parried every attack on Trump by citing his record, and then reminding viewers of Kamala’s record.  He also came across as empathetic, sensitive and positive, thus giving himself the best chance to persuade any female voters who are still persuadable.

Walz was better than Kamala – the lowest of low bars – but was still bumbling and gaffe-prone.  Even viewers who were only passing through an airport and didn’t hear him call himself a knucklehead – fact check: true! – got a visual of his bug-eyed awkwardness. 

The moderators were once again biased hacks, though not as thoroughly awful as David Muir and Linsey Davis.  I’m more convinced than ever that I was right in my columns a couple of weeks ago: future debate moderators should just be time-keepers, and stay out of the way.

It’s infuriating to see some “journalist” cutting off the candidates with comments like, “I want to move on” and “There’s a lot more to get to.”  We don’t care what you want, Teleprompter Reader.  No one’s voting for you, and you’re not the candidates’ parents!

They once again fact-checked the GOP candidate, even though they had agreed not to fact-check either side, and their “fact check” was once again wrong.  When Vance called the Haitians in Springfield “illegal immigrants,” Margaret Brennan jumped in to misleadingly condescend:  “Just to clarify for our viewers, [the Haitians in Springfield] have legal status.”

Vance handled it perfectly.  As soon as he started to correct her, both moderators interrupted him and tried to move on, but he wouldn’t let them.  He kept speaking until they had to momentarily shut up.  He pointed out that they had broken their promise not to do fact checks, and then accurately destroyed the faux fact check. 

He correctly said that the Haitians came illegally, and then used the CBP-1 application to file an asylum claim and then, “be granted legal status at the wave of a Kamala Harris open border wand.”  As he pointed out how different that was from going through the legal immigration process, the moderators realized he’d just pantsed them on live tv, and frantically cut his mike. 

Perfect!

I don’t know where this race stands, because there are contradictory polls everywhere, and the average of all polling shows the race tied.  That’s a depressing thought, but my gut instinct is to guess that Trump’s at least a little ahead.  Though it’s only a guess, I will cite two bits of evidence.

First, Kamala has been her terrible self in a series of recent interviews.  Her rambling, word-goulash answers (“word salad” is a too healthy and positive metaphor for the verbal dog’s breakfasts that she has been serving up) aren’t getting any better. 

You can always tell when she learns a new word or phrase, because she immediately starts beating it into the ground.  We all know “see what could be, unburdened by what has been,” and “in terms of…” and “dreams, aspirations and ambitions.”  Last week someone gave her a notecard with the word “holistic” on it, and she went on a compulsive, Tourette’s-like seizure of  holistically holistic holisticality.   

In her recent talk to a bunch of athletes – huh? – she rolled out one of her old favorites, which she must think makes her sound tough: “I eat ‘no’ for breakfast!”

And Willie Brown for lunch.

Okay, that was beneath me.  Withdrawn.

By the way, I am pleasantly surprised that her handlers have been putting Que Mala out there as much as they have over the last couple of weeks.  They have to know how terrible she is at speaking, and they’ve gotten her into a dead heat by hiding her completely. 

In fact, my main argument for Trump debating her again was that she otherwise won’t say another word in public between now and election day, thus hiding her total vacuity in a way that she wouldn’t have been able to in a debate.  But she’s actually been fielding some pitched softballs in interviews, and somehow still managing to miss the balls and hit herself in the head with the bat.

And I know what you’re thinking when you heard ‘softballs’: “Ooh, Martin’s going to talk about Doug Emhoff now.” 

And I am.  But not until my Monday column. (Consider yourself teased.)

The only rational reason I can think of for the Dems putting her out there is that they must have some internal polling that shows that Trump is ahead of her.

Which brings me to my second and last point: the cross tabs in the polling don’t make sense.

Nearly all polls show the overall race within the margin of error, but they also show Trump doing substantially better than he did in the past with important sub-groups of voters.  For example, he trailed Biden in 2020 among Hispanics by 34 points, but is only down to Kamala with them by 14. 

The same goes for a lot of groups: blacks, young people, independents, etc.  In every case, Trump is doing markedly better with each sub-group than he did in 2016 or 2020, yet he’s supposed to be in a dead heat with the electorate as a whole.

He was never going to get votes from hard-left Dems.  (Fun fact: after the Biden self-immolation/train-wreck debate in June, 20% of viewers said that BIDEN WON!  Those people are un-freakin’-reachable.)  But he certainly hasn’t lost any of his base. 

So either the internals are accurate and Trump is ahead overall, or the internals are all wrong and the overall race is really tied.  Either way, the left is going to try to cheat, so we need to get out our vote and aggressively poll watch.

The bottom line:  I won’t be able to relax until Katie is home and fully recovered, and Trump has won the election. 

And I’m praying for both! 

Hamas delenda est!

More Explosions in Lebanon: This Time it’s Radios & Walkie-Talkies (posted 9/19/24)

You’re not going to believe this, but this is my fourth daily column in a row, and I’ve got another one holstered and almost ready for tomorrow.  Which means I am in the midst of pulling off the unthinkable: the fabled 5-column week!

I’m like a clutch receiver at the height of his powers, on 3rd-and-6 with the game on the line: you can’t stop me, you can only hope to contain me.

One of my contacts in the Trump campaign told me that the big guy just heard about this, and said, “Five columns?  I heard that, and I said, ‘A five column week?!’  This is like something nobody’s ever even thought of. People are saying it’s unprecedented.  No precedent for it!  First his great advice on debating, then his instant classic “Muhammad Dangerfield” bit, and now this?  I need that guy in my cabinet.  He’s just fantastic, right?”

How do you know that that quote is authentic, and didn’t come from Joe Biden?  Because it didn’t end with, “Pause.  Repeat the line.” 

I took a nap yesterday, right after reading about the Iranian diplomat who lost both of his eyes to an exploding pager, and the last thought in my mind before falling asleep was, “What would an Iranian diplomat be doing with a terrorist’s pager?”

You can imagine how my subconscious mind works, since you’ve been reading how oddly my conscious mind works.  So… yep.  My first thoughts when I woke up were, “Does this mean that Iranian diplomat is just a Ranian diplomat, now?”  (Boom!  Missing eye joke when you least expect it!) (He never saw it coming, either!) (I’m here all week, people.)

By the way, I’ve been reading all of your comments this week, and I appreciate them.  But I haven’t had time to respond to them.  Because I may not have mentioned this, but I’ve been turning out another solid gold column every 27 minutes over here!

Still, I appreciate your kind words, and thanks.

Just when I feared that Tuesday’s pager-palooza in Lebanon might be inducing a dangerous redirecting of my blood flow that threatens to last for more than four hours, a sequel appears, this time involving walkie-talkies (or as they’re now being called, “talkies-no-longer-walkies”) and radios!

Who knew that jihadis listened to radio?   (“Hey, cool camels and kittens, you’re listening to your 50,000-watt blowtorch out of downtown Beirut – the station with all the ululatin’ – and you knoowww our call-sign: K-BOOM.  It’s another wacky, Death-to-Israel Wednesday!  Fifth caller gets a signed copy of Hassan Nasrallah’s biography, “Mein Kampf? Me Too!”  Now sit back and listen to the Madrassah Boys, and their remake of the infidel surf group’s “Little Deuce Coupe!”  “She’s my little goat bride, you don’t know what I’ve got.  Well, I’m not bragging, Hamid, so don’t put me down, But I’ve got the sweetest she-goat in this one-camel town, I met her on a Monday in the neighbor’s barn, and soon we were talkin—”  BOOM! (then static)

You see what I did there?  It’s my version of the Mossad mind trick.  They implanted explosive devices in the ears of terrorists, and I just implanted an ear worm in your head.  Because right this minute, those of you old enough to remember the Beach Boys are bobbing your head and softly humming to yourself, “She’s my little goat bride, you don’t know what I’ve got.” 

Sorry about that.

This story just keeps getting better and better!  Imagine you’re a black-hearted little Hezbo anti-Semite.  All you’ve ever wanted to do is stuff women into bee-keeper outfits, toss gay guys off roofs, and kill unarmed Jewish civilians.  But on Tuesday your dad (Muhammad) and your uncles (Muhammad and Muhammad) and your grandpa (Muhammad) and even your cousin Joey – he’s always been an odd one – all answered their pagers, and no one’s heard from them since. 

Which reminds me of an old joke:

A young Muslim is seeking a divorce.  (He should have known the marriage was doomed right from the wedding vows, when the imam asked his betrothed if she takes this jihadi to be her lawfully wedded husband, and she just bleated and continued chewing on a tin can.)  But he doesn’t know marital law, so he looks for a local attorney.

He comes across a firm that sounds promising: “Muhammad, Muhammad, Muhammad & Muhammad, Esquire.”  So he calls, and someone picks up.  (This joke takes place before all the phones in Lebanon went ballistic.)

Voice on phone: “Hello, Muhammad and etc.”

Jihadi: “Can I please speak to Muhammad?”

Voice: “I’m sorry, he was droned last week.”

Jihadi: “Well then, can I speak to Muhammad?”

Voice: “He’s in Qatar until Thursday.”

Jihadi: “Then let me speak to Muhammad.”

Voice:  “He’s hiding in a ‘freedom tunnel’ and defecating into a bucket all afternoon.”

Jihadi: “Okay, can I talk to Muhammad, then?”

Voice: “Speaking.”

Back to the young Hezbollah would-be terrorist: What’s he supposed to do now?  His older brother (Muhammad) and his second cousin once removed (Muhammad) thought they’d found a work-around to communicate: two cups connected by a very long string. 

But in the middle of a conversation about murdering elderly Jews in wheelchairs, one of them said, “Hey, wait a minute.  This isn’t string.  It’s primer cord!  You filthy Je—” And… KA-BLAM!

Rumors that Nasrallah and Yahya Sinwar are now training a small flock of carrier pigeons have been confirmed.

Meanwhile, in a secret lab hidden deep beneath Mount Sinai, three guys in yarmulkes are gathered around a fourth, who has just put down a soldering iron.  He steps back, holds up a small metal band that would fit around a pigeon’s leg, and says, “Gentlemen, I give you the C4-DEADS.”

“Ooh,” one of them says.  “The C-4 Detonating Explosive Avian Delivery System? Nice!”

Next up: Shin Bet is working on a plan to make it so that if two terrorists cup their hands around their mouths to yell to each other across a rubble-strewn street, their fingers explode.

And, scene.

Oh, another layer of sweet irony in Pager-Gate just occurred to me. 

In the decades since 9/11 – memo to Que Mala: that day was just a tad bit worse than January 6th, you moron – terrorists throughout the Middle East and Afghanistan have been using cell phones and pagers to send signals to detonate roadside bombs and IEDs.

I bet they did not see this “Reverse” UNO card coming!

I cannot get enough of this story!  As Billy Edd Wheeler might say, I’m happy as a pig in slop right now.  (How’s that for an abrupt transition?)

Who’s Billy Edd Wheeler, you may be asking, if you don’t know as much about high-brow culture as I do?  He’s the songwriter with the most country music songwriter name ever, and he just died yesterday at the age of 91. 

Among other great hits, he wrote the most concisely evocative description of divorce ever, in Johnny Cash’s hit, “Jackson: “We got married in a fever, hotter than a pepper sprout./We’ve been talking ‘bout Jackson, ever since the fire went out.”

(Taylor Swift has written 3,261 songs, and all of the meaning in all of them put together can’t match that one couplet.)

He also wrote one of the strangest songs ever, for Kenny Rogers: “Coward of the County.”  (It’s about the darkest subject, and yet treated so bizarrely, and put to such a jaunty tune.)  

If you’ve never taken a piece of advice from me before – and if so, see how your life is turning out?  That’s on you. – take this one:

Use “Duckduckgo.com” (NOT commie Google) to search “Norm Macdonald and Adam Carolla discussing Coward of the County,” and then listen to some 24-karat comedy gold! (I really miss Norm!) It’s two parts, and it’s worth it.

In fact, they also do a hilarious break down of “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town.”  And I’m just a simple, country doctor of literature and not a psychiatrist, but if you don’t think that’s funny, you are clinically insane.

In fact, if you listen to those two gems and don’t agree that your life has been improved by at least 1%, I will happily refund all the money you’ve put in my PayPal tip jar at Martinsimpsonwriting.com. 

What’s that?  You’ve never put anything in my tip jar?

I’m slowly turning away from you now…

RIP, Billy Edd

Not so much, Hezbollah terrorists.

Hamas delenda est!

Paging Hezbollah: There’s a new “Feel-Good Story of the Year” Leader in the Clubhouse (posted 9/18/24)

For those of you scoring at home, this is my third column in as many days, and I’m writing one for Friday, too.  I know what you’re thinking, and yes, I gladly accept the thanks of a grateful nation. 

Speaking of guys who are crushing it at life, how about those Israelis?  I thought they’d peaked for this week on Monday. 

Ooh, let me start this story a different way: 

Once upon a time, there was an Iranian-funded underground Hezbollah missile production facility near Masyaf, Syria.  (And yes, many Middle Eastern town names are apparently translations from Klingon.) But that was on Sunday, when Israel started hitting Syrian military sites in the area with very distracting air strikes.   

On Monday – as the local Syrian fighters were peeking their heads out, checking on the condition of their fellow jihadis and their goat girlfriends — Israeli special forces bad-asses fast-roped down onto the missile facility from a helicopter.  They killed 13 fighters, stole a bunch of intelligence documents, and then set explosive charges and got back into their helicopter, taking off and banking away as the missiles intended for Jew-killing blew up behind them. 

And if they weren’t blasting some eerie shophar music from under-mounted speakers as they streaked across the desert back home, they left some terrorist-intimidating money on the table!

So that was Monday, and already it was a great week.  But then… Man o’ Manischewitz!  On Tuesday, pagers started going off all over Lebanon. 

And I don’t mean “going off” as in beeping and words scrolling on a screen, but “going off” the way a hand grenade goes off.  Only much, MUCH funnier!

It seems that in recent months, terrorist leaders in the area had noticed that when many of their colleagues and underlings were on a cell phone, they had a tendency to get a spontaneous, drone-assisted colonoscopy courtesy of Mossad Mobile Phones.  After which their fighting effectiveness declined precipitously.  

So the leaders came up with a brilliant plan: let’s buy 3000 old-school pagers, and distribute them to all of our terrorist brethren throughout Lebanon.  They can’t be traced like cell phones, and if they were good enough to coordinate weed sales throughout NYC in 1990, why couldn’t they be used to coordinate Jew murdering in Allah-ville in 2024? 

Hilariously enough, they’d forgotten the third most famous rule in foreign policy, right after “Don’t invade Russia when winter is coming on,” and “Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line”:

“Never screw with a nation that has more Nobel prize winners than your nation has unmolested goats.”

It’s a cliché because it’s true. 

So somewhere between the pager factory in Taiwan and the filthy Hezbollah HQ in Lebanon, some clever Hebrew hackers get hold of the 3000 pagers and equipped them with the latest upgrade in detonating communications software. 

It was like the old Jewish vaudeville routine of putting a little charge in a cigar to make it explode.  Only much, MUCH funnier! 

Oh, to be a fly on the wall in the jihadi Costco warehouse where the pallets of pagers were being unloaded!  I picture a couple of flunkies slicing the packing tape on pager boxes, making small talk: 

Flunky 1: “How’s the missus, Bilal?”

Flunky 2: “Very content.”

Flunky 1: “You’re a lucky man.  She is one attractive ungulate!”

Flunky 2: “You too have done well for yourself.  Your Fatima has very shapely hooves.  And her coat? As white as the infidel Senator Elizabeth Warren!”

Flunky 1 (nodding modestly): “Hashtag ‘we must never stop mocking her,’ am I right?”

Then a middle manager comes in and gathers a crowd of jihadis around a long row of pallets.  “All right men, distribute these to everyone in your chain of command.  Make sure that they keep them on their persons at all times, preferably attached to their hip or in a pocket, close to their groin.  When the beeper sounds, have them hold the pager in their dominant hand, and look directly at it from a very short distance, to see the message.”

There probably aren’t any comedy clubs in Beirut, but if there are, I’ll bet Muhammad Dangerfield is facing a tough room right now. 

“It’s great to be here, you’re a wonderful crowd.  I’ll tell ya, I don’t get any respect from Nasrallah at all.  The guy hasn’t even talked to me in days.  (raising his hand) Has anybody else heard from him lately?  Show of hands?” (awkward silence, as angry weird beards stare sullenly at their bandaged stumps)  Oh, right.  Too soon.”

“Hey, things have been hectic at work, haven’t they?  I mean it’s only Tuesday, but this morning, pagers were blowing up all over the office.” 

Heckler: “Boo!  Get off stage!”

“My brother-in-law, he’s no prize either.  He got a message today asking him if he’d like to change his long distance carrier to Sprint.  As in ‘Sprint away from this pager as fast as you can!”

Heckler: “You are not funny man.  Go away now!”

“I’ll tell ya, he’s not doing well.  His beeper went off, and he lost his new robe and his old pronouns, if you know what I mean.”

And, scene.

Man, I love this story!  It’s such a masterstroke, tactically and morally.  There could not be a more satisfying way to strike evil people than to trick them into maiming themselves.  And this “Trojan pager” move has – for one, shining moment – solved the age-old dilemma of how to fight terrorists imbedded in a civilian population without killing tons of civilians.  And all without putting IDF soldiers at risk!

Every person with one of those phones proved his guilt and invited his just punishment, simply by possessing it.  And other than one or two innocents who might have been standing next to daddy (assuming daddy is a murderous scumbag) when he got his message from Jehovah, every person killed or wounded is part of a self-selecting surgical strike.

This ingenious move is going to bear fruit for a long time.  The terrorists had only gotten the pagers in the first place because their communications networks had been severely compromised.  Now they’re going to be frozen in place, and completely paranoid.  The only way to send messages will be by courier, and IDF drones can look for anybody running down a street with a missing hand or a scorched groin, and blast away. 

Between the PTSD, the career-ending wounds, and the recovery time necessary for those who can recover, thousands of evil killers have been taken off the board.     

Congrats, bravo, and l’chaim, IDF! 

And now, more than ever…

Hamas delenda est!