Tag: trump

Thoughts on Immigration, Part 2 (posted 4/4/25)

In my column on Wednesday I covered a little bit of the history of our immigration laws, and discussed the long-standing legal and common-sense concept that we have every right to decide who to allow to come into our country, and under what circumstances.  And however much our rules about immigration have developed and evolved, they’ve always included one central idea: we should allow people in who can improve and benefit America.

Hence the five categories that I quoted from the 1891 Immigration Act.  If you’re a foreigner who wants to come here, and you’re stupid, or mentally or physically ill, why would we want you here?  If you’re a criminal, why would we want to be your victims?  If you can’t or won’t support yourself financially, why would we want to work harder and tax ourselves more, just to take care of you? 

On the one hand, it’s weird to even have to say all that, because rational self-interest seems so self-evident and obvious.  If Americans don’t have the right to decide who comes into America, who does?  And if you will predictably make us dumber, sicker, poorer and more preyed-upon, why would we allow you in?

On the other hand, over the last half-century or more, we’ve developed almost a sense of shame – at the very least, embarrassment – about our strength, successes, and wealth.  It hits our ears wrong to say, to the millions who would want to immigrate to America, “What’s in it for us?”  Many schools of thought have added to this unease, some of them good, and some very bad.

I’d include the Judeo-Christian world view that is entwined in our national DNA – and which formed the ethical and political architecture of our Founders’ minds, and the scaffolding of the constitution and democratic republic they built – as the most important factor on the good side.  We were raised on stories of the Good Shepherd and the Good Samaritan, and our duty to care for the widow and the orphan, and for the poor.  We’re a generous and a compassionate people, in no small part because of a wide-ranging body of teaching from Uncle Jesus and his predecessors that, “As you’ve done to the least of these, you’ve done it unto Me.”

On the bad side, we shouldn’t underestimate how much damage has been done by leftist schools of thought, and the multitude of ways they have taught our children to hate our country and themselves. 

Multiculturalism tells us that all cultures are equally valid, except that ours is somehow worse than the primitive and the non-capitalist ones.  Socialism tells us that the wealthy are evil exploiters, rather than the creators of rising tides that can lift all boats.  Critical race theory and post-colonial studies tell us that successful first-world countries and the lighter skinned are eternal victimizers, and the rest of the world their rightly aggrieved victims.    

Put that all together and disseminate it through an insular and propagandizing educational system, and you get the modern West – wildly successful, and while flawed, the best available model for the world to follow – yet without the civilizational self-confidence to vigorously defend itself, let alone its borders.  

Which brings us to today, with tens of millions of people here illegally.  They’ve come here for good reasons and bad – some to work hard and make better lives for themselves, some to prey on a wealthy and vulnerable populace, some to take advantage of our idiotically generous and unpoliced welfare benefits.

This has been incredibly frustrating for most Americans.  Clear majorities in all polls say they want less LEGAL immigration, and giant majorities want illegal immigration stopped, and illegals deported.  And yet there have been a network of groups who have been able to engineer the recent waves of illegals coming in.

Self-interested businesses want cheaper labor.  Foreign governments and cartels and their American partners want to enrich themselves through remittances, as well as smuggling and organized crime.  Gullible and naïve church and “charitable” groups have allowed their misplaced compassion (and IMHO, often an intoxicating sense of their own virtue) to blind themselves to the damage they are doing to their own country.    

But most of those people and groups have always been here, and together have always accounted for some illegal immigration into this country.  But the driving force behind the recent flood of illegals has been the Democrat party.  Dem politicians see illegals as an army of future voters who will secure their national political majority for many decades, thus allowing them to achieve their political goals of a more leftist/socialist, and less traditionally American, country.

And the fact that an entrenched network of NGOs and other Dem organizations (which DOGE is just beginning to uncover) can enrich themselves in the process is just icing on the cake for them.

To me, the best thing about the new Trump administration so far has been the way they’ve closed the border and started deportations.  All of my usual hyperbolic mockery aside, I’ve been giddy watching the American people regain their self-confidence, to the point where they will openly support deporting illegals, unswayed by the usual accusations of racism and xenophobia. 

I love watching the elite Left – lulled into an arrogant complacency by years of hectoring us, unopposed – get completely wrong-footed when their usual attacks no longer work.  When AOC lectured Hulk Homan™ that “being in the country illegally isn’t a crime,” he rhetorically pantsed her (it’s not my fault that she has placed her juicy booty – her words, not mine – front and center in the public’s mind) by reciting from memory the relevant portions of US law that proved her wrong. 

All she could do was pull up her pants, stammer, and change the subject.  (Rumors that her panties were red, with a hammer and sickle on the seat have not been confirmed.)

The top Dems don’t know if they’re afoot or horseback on immigration, and it’s glorious to see!   After they insisted for a full year that Biden couldn’t close the border without new legislation, Trump closed it 15 minutes after being inaugurated, and everyone started glaring at those Dems, while they looked at their feet or checked their watches.

When some immigration raids began catching run-of-the-mill illegals along with the violent TDA gangbangers who were being targeted, lefty talking heads got excited.  They actually  thought that it would turn the public against deportations!  But every time they did some kind of “man on the street” interviews, the citizens said something like, “But the untargeted ones are here illegally too?” 

And before the “journalist” could say, “Well yeah, but-“ the citizen would say, “Vamanos!” or “Adios!”      

Hysterical Jamie Raskin actually gave a speech calling for the plane full of gang-bangers to be flown back here so they can have taxpayer-funded lawyers and years-long hearings to see if they get to stay! 

Keep it up, Dems, and let us know how that works for you.

I’ve got a few more thoughts on how likely it is that we’ll be able to deport the vast majority of illegal immigrants, and also on the related controversies over deporting students who were here legally on student visas or green cards.  But this column is long enough, so I’ll save those for next week.

In the meantime, I’ll leave you with a joke I saw last week…

How badly has Snow Woke bombed? (Unexpectedly.)

Someone posted a pic from the opening night’s 8 o’clock showing… and labeled it “Snow White and the Seven Audience Members.”

Have a great weekend, and don’t forget…

Hamas delenda est!

Thoughts on Immigration, Pt. 1 (posted 4/2/25)

Since the Trumpkrieg™ started on January 20th, the Democrats have taken the short end of one 80/20 issue after another, but none more important than the issue of illegal immigration. They’ve made so many illogical, specious arguments on the topic that I’ve found myself muttering to myself about this issue more than any others. 

And regular readers know that it’s never a very big jump from “muttering to myself” to “sharing with CO nation.”  So here goes.

The two most annoying leftist immigration fallacies are: acting as if there is no difference between legal and illegal immigration, and acting as if immigrating to America in the 18th century was just like immigrating here recently, or today.

The first point is too obvious to require much debunking.  To equate immigrating legally to doing so illegally is as stupid as equating having a loving relationship with your spouse to rape.  And yet if you were to watch 8 hours of MSNBC or CNN each day – God help you – you would see dozens of boneheads saying, “Except for Native Americans, all Americans are descendants of immigrants!”

Yes, Rachel Maddow.  But you can also say, “Thousands of people go into banks every week, and they leave with money.” 

But most of them go in with a photo ID, and leave with money from their own accounts.  And some of them go in with pistols and ski masks, and leave with other people’s money. 

That’s different!

The second point relies on the listener being ignorant of history.  Which – conveniently for the leftists – most people who went to leftist-run public schools are.

But just like illegal immigration is very different from the legal kind, immigrating to the US before around 1850 was very different than coming in the last hundred years or so.    

That earlier period was marked by a largely empty continent offering immigrants more danger and challenges than tempting opportunities. 

Yes, I said “a largely empty continent.”  And before you can bring up the native Lizzie Warrens living here then – #wemustneverstopmockingher – estimates are that around 4-7 million Indians lived in all of today’s US and Canada around 1492.  That comes out to between 2 and 4 humans per square mile.  And that’s before epidemics thinned that number considerably by the time Europeans got a toehold on the eastern seaboard. 

Back then, there was very little government and absolutely no social safety net.  Nor even any literal safety nets, for that matter.  (Nor seat belts, nor “no smoking” signs, nor labels on the top of a ladder warning that you shouldn’t use it as a step.)  The fledgling nation needed all of the hearty pioneers with grit, ambition and work ethic that it could get.  So it largely welcomed all comers.

And when many of them suffered gruesome deaths – from scalping-involved Warren-cide (#neverstop), being thrown from seatbelt-less saddles in multi-horse collisions, or neck-breaking falls from the top steps of ladders – the rest of the citizenry just went about their business.

Because immigrating wasn’t for whiny wusses.

By the 20th century, and especially with the growth of governmental and other financial support, the situation was very different.  The country could still benefit from hard-working immigrants, but with many areas getting more crowded and the number of would-be immigrants exploding – not to mention the powerful draw of ever-more-generous welfare programs, and newcomers who no longer wanted to assimilate – the risk-reward ratio of large-scale immigration shifted toward more caution, limits and careful vetting. 

You can discern the nation’s developing thinking about immigration by tracking the amount of legislation on the topic during the 19th century.  The Steerage Act of 1819 required that arriving boats have a manifest of immigrants on board, and that those aliens be inspected and given a medical exam before even preliminarily being allowed entry.  Multiple acts in the 1870s and 1880s banned entry to forced laborers, prostitutes and Chinese people.

The two major laws regulating immigration in that century – the Immigration Acts of 1882 and 1891, respectively – enacted increasingly more stringent restrictions on would-be immigrants.

Consider the first paragraph of the Immigration Act of 1891: 

“The following classes of aliens shall be excluded from admission into the United States, in according with the existing acts regulating immigration other than those concerning Chinese laborers: All idiots, insane persons, paupers or persons likely to become a public charge, persons suffering from a loathsome or a dangerous contagious disease, persons who have been convicted of a felony or other infamous crime or misdemeanor involving moral turpitude, polygamists, and also any person whose ticket or passages if paid for with money of another or who is assisted by others to come.”

Let’s break that down.  The list starts and ends with what I think are less relevant points.  I can only guess that the concern about Chinese laborers arose from fear that they would make the rest of us look lazy in comparison, and possibly that they would screw up the grading curve in all of our classes?

The part at the end about immigrants whose passage is paid for by others seems to depend on the context.  If they had family members or solid citizens paying their way in, we should probably consider them.  But if they were funded by some shadowy character – likely named “Soros” – send them packing.

But consider the middle of that passage, which is so relevant that it could have been ripped from today’s headlines.  It lists 5 groups of people – with old-fashioned descriptions that can be easily translated to their modern equivalents – who should not be allowed into the US:

1. Stupid people – “Idiot” later had a specific, IQ-defined meaning, but the modern “stupid” is a suitable umbrella term. 

Fun fact: Psychologists once classified those with an IQ between 0-25 as “idiots,” those between 26-50 as “imbeciles,” and those between 51-70 as “morons.” 

Those groupings are still relevant today, especially if you are trying to analyze members of congress, or answer questions such as, “Is Hank Johnson a low-range or mid-range idiot?” or  “Is AOC capable of achieving imbecility?” or “Have Jasmine Crockett’s remarks about the Texas governor dropped her from moron status all the way to idiocy, or just to imbecility with a dusting of sociopathy?”

2. The mentally ill.  (See: sufferers of gender dysmorphia or auto-gynophilia; watchers of CNN, or The View; Robert DeNiro) 

3. Welfare recipients and those willing to go on the dole.  “Pauper” can just mean “broke” – a temporary state that many (even certain hilarious geniuses) of us have experienced.  And a broke person may even take welfare for a very short time.  But “a public charge” is someone who can’t or won’t support himself, and “likely to become a public charge” is a common fixture in modern America: a habitual and/or multi-generational welfare recipient.  

4. Health risks.   Remember when covid was so threatening that American citizens couldn’t leave their houses…but millions of unvetted third-worlders with hacking coughs were waved through the border like leftist celebrities being welcomed to Pedo Island by Jeffrey Epstein?  And who can read “loathsome, contagious disease” and not think of the plague, TB or the woke mind virus?  

5. Criminals.  These are commonplace, today as in the past.  If you aren’t familiar with “moral turpitude,” think “Hunter Biden.”  And we don’t have many polygamists (i.e. married to more than one person at a time) anymore, having replaced them with never-married baby mommas and dead-beat dads.

Look at that list one more time, and apply it to a sane immigration policy going forward.

Denying entry to group 4 (the health risks) should be uncontroversial to even the far-leftists among us.  If you’re still wearing a covid mask in 2025 and looking forward to your 13th covid booster… zip it, Karen!

Groups 1 and 2 – the stupid and the insane – make up at least a large plurality if not an outright majority of our current Congress.  Annnnddd… we definitely don’t need any more of those. 

And groups 3 and 5 – welfare recipients and criminals – make up the lion’s share of the Democratic base.  So that’s a hard pass. 

Coming Friday: Part 2, in which I apply the lessons above to our current deportation debates.

Hamas delenda est!

Dems are Super-Racist to the Chinese, & Ben and Jerry’s Have Problems (posted 3/24/25)

The Democrats have been addicted to racism for a long time. 

No, I’m not talking about the way they built their entire economy around slavery, clinging to it like grim death until the Republicans formed a new party, elected a new president, and sent an army south – eventually commanded by a bad-arse future GOP president – to whip them and free their slaves.

And I’m not even talking about the way they stewed about that, formed the KKK and passed a raft of Jim Crow laws that they clung to like grim death for around 80 more years, until another GOP president sent the 101st Airborne to Little Rock to allow 9 black kids to go to a previously segregated high school.  (“I like Ike.  My bike likes Ike!”)

(“Let’s try A. Fonzarelli quotes for $200, Alex.”)

Nope.  I’m talking about the way the Dems have somehow – against all reason, logic and fairness – been able to project their own sins onto the GOP, and cudgel them with charges of racism for the last half-century or so.  Racism became the Dems’ first plan of attack, their Plan B, their Hail Mary, and their best defense. 

You couldn’t point out that Obama doubled the national debt in 8 years because math is racist.    You couldn’t point out that Jamaal Bowman obstructed a congressional vote by yanking a fire alarm, because fire suppression systems are racist.

You couldn’t point out that Que Mala could not excrete a sentence with a recognizable subject verb and object, because many African cultures have a rich traditional heritage of practicing ojibah-ahwoo-gawaymee.  Which is Swahili for “word salad.” 

And before you can look that up, I have to warn you that fact checking is racist!  

Which brings me back to my initial point: the Democrats have become addicted to racism.  And I’ll bet you can guess how they’ve been clinging to it.

That’s right: like grim death.

But as with most addictions, what once used to bring pleasure can start to go sideways. 

Maybe a guy used to enjoy a little bourbon – the brownest of the brown liquors – every now and again.  Like to celebrate special occasions, or to cope with a virulent strain of poison ivy that would kill a lesser man.  Or maybe to loosen the adhesions a bit when he’s sitting down to write a bit of deathless, comic political prose.

Well I’m not talking about that.  Because that’s some high-functioning, medicinal-quality self-care right there.  And I didn’t produce four insightful yet hilarious columns in just the last week, only to be told that I can’t imbibe in a little Kentucky inspiration in my own home!!

Perhaps I’ve said too much.  But let’s not get sidetracked. 

The Dems’ racism problem is the classical addict’s dilemma: as their dependency grew, they needed more and more racism, just to keep it together, and the supply could not keep up with their demand.  And now it’s interfering with their job, their quality of life, and their electoral performance.     

They’ve become so delusional that they look at a minimally racist country and see prejudice everywhere.  They’re like an anorexic looking into a mirror at her xylophone ribcage and instead seeing a Whoopi Goldberg-esque blob.

They don’t recognize how off-putting it is to claim that voter ID laws are racist, because black people could not possibly get an ID, like a normal person.  Or that DEI and quotas are essential, because without them no black person would ever be able to get into college or the job market again.  

Even when they try to pose as anti-racist in contexts that involve other ethnicities, they screw that up.  Liz Warren has made herself a national punchline by insisting that she’s as Indian as Sitting Bull, when anyone can see that she’s as Indian as Bull Conner.  (#wemustneverstopmockingher)

But my favorite recent example has surfaced as the Dems’ covid origins lies have been exposed.  When Trump – and many, many others – suggested that the virus escaped from a Chinese lab where viruses were studied and experimented with, DC Democrats got their backs up immediately: “Are you suggesting that Chinese researchers and scientists could have been dropped the ball in the lab? That’s RACIST!!”

So what was their enlightened, diversity-embracing, anti-racist alternative to the Chicom-phobic lab-leak theory?  Drum-roll, please…

The Chinese people are basically a cross between Gollum, Ozzy Osbourne, and carnival geeks, furtively stalking through grisly “wet markets” wolfing down every pangolin, muskrat and ocelot they could get their bestial claws on.

That sounds nice, doesn’t it?

Okay, I’m no ocelotologist – it was between that and English, and I chose what turned out to be the less lucrative field – so I don’t know if China is rich in ocelots.  But if the enlightened Dems are correct, the voracious untermenschen Chinese probably gobbled them all up long ago. 

Come to think of it, that’s probably why the wooly mammoths are extinct.  “Siri, please explain the connection between disgusting Chinese dietary habits and the extinction of the mammoth?”

Annnnddd… that’s why the Chinese can’t have nice things, like sabre tooth tigers, mammoths, and pet pangolins.  Because of their unspeakably barbaric gustatory predilections. 

So to summarize, here is the Democrats’ position:

The hypothesis that Chinese scientists followed insufficiently rigorous containment protocols?    Horribly, horribly racist.

The idea that Chinese people are essentially troglodytic creatures fighting in a muddy moshpit over the chance to devour baskets full of squealing critters alive as if they were living chum thrown to Hannibal Lecter’s bloodthirsty hogs? 

Obviously true, and you’re welcome, inscrutable Asian friends. 

Nice job, non-racist-stereotyping leftists!   

Speaking of leftists eating their own… did you hear that Ben and Jerry’s CEO just got fired for being too much of an extreme leftist whack job?

(Thank you, Kentucky distillers, for that top-notch transition!)

I know: that sounds like the setup for a joke.  Getting fired from Mao and Jerry’s – I would also accept “Ben and Lenin’s” – for being too far left is like getting kicked out of the Sex Pistols for extreme rudeness. 

But Ben and Jerry sold their crunchy little business to corporate giant Unilever a few decades ago – way to rebel against the Man, you hippy hypocrites! – and like sane businesses everywhere, Unilever prefers not to lose money.

Enter B&J CEO David Stever, a leftist who chafes at having to consider customer preferences when there is social justice virtue signaling to be done.  He and his supporters have had several run-ins with Unilever because of his hostility to Israel and soft spot for “Palestinians.” 

(Unilever’s first clue should have been when the wokesters introduced “Jihadi Crunch,” “Cookies and IED,” and Hamas-cicles.)   

They’ve also aligned themselves with lefty activist groups, put out a Fourth of July message that declared that the US was “founded on stolen indigenous land,” and supported Kamala for president.

The last straw was apparently a recent social media post celebrating – and I swear I am not making this up – “National Abortion Providers Appreciation Day.” 

I would have loved to eavesdrop on the meeting that took place between a few adults from Unilever and the Social Justice Warrior Hippies after that post went viral:

Unilever Adult 1 (UA1): Why the hell would you post about National Abortionist Day?!

SJW Hippie (SJWH) 1: Do you think it’s gotten too commercial?

SJWH 2: It’s about appreciation.

UA2: Yeah, appreciating abortionists!

SJWH 1: Should we have said “health care providers?”

UA1 (palming his forehead): What do you think we sell?

SJWH 2: Raised consciousness.

SJWH 3: Our truth.

SJWH1: Moral superiority.

UA 1: We sell ICE CREAM!

SJWHs (chastened): Of course.  Ice cream.

SJWH 4: I was going to say that.

SJWH 2: Shut up, Bruce.  (quietly) Brown noser.

UA 1:  And who do abortionists kill?

SJWH 1 (hesitantly): I don’t like the word “kill.”

UA 2: I don’t care!  Who do they kill?!

SJWH 1: Unwanted tissue masses?

SJWH 2: Part of a woman’s body?

SJWH 3: Zygotes?

UA 1 (rubbing his temples): I don’t want the answer your grievance study professors gave you.  I want the real answer.

SJWH 1 (fidgeting): I’m feeling triggered right n-

UA 1 (in a low, ominous tone): If you don’t give me the real answer, I’m going to drop a dime to Hulk Homan™ about the USAID grant you spent on smuggling in those illegals for your Pride Week S&M Festival last y-

SJWHs 1-4: KIDS!  Abortionists kill kids!

UA 1: That’s right.  And who LOVES eating ice cream?

SJWH 4 (looking at the others):  Martin Simpson?

UA 1: That’s right, it’s ki–  Wait, what?  Who is Martin Simpson?

SJWH 4: Hilarious genius, national treasure, writes for Cautious Optimism?

SJWH 2: Has a real problem with ice cream.  Loves the stuff.

SJWH 3: That and bourbon.

UA 2: How do you–  Nevermind. Why would I ask you about his eating habits?

SJWH 3 (looking at the others and shrugging): No idea.

SJWH 4:  Yeah, I wondered where you were going with that.

UA 1: Shut up, Bruce!  I wasn’t going anywhere wi–  Look, the point is, KIDS love eating ice cream.  And abortionists kill kids.  Do you get that?

SJWH 1:  Yeah… So?

UA 1: SO STOP POSTING ABOUT HOW MUCH YOU APPRECIATE THE PEOPLE WHO ARE KILLING OUR CUSTOMERS!!  YOU MORONS!

SJWH 4 (bursting into tears):  I’m triggered!  I’m triggered! 

UA 1: Shut up, Bruce!  You’re fired!  You’re all fired!!

SJWH 2: You can’t do that.

UA 1: I just did!

SJWH 3:  We’ll see what the judge has to say about that.

UA 1: What?  What are you talking about?

SJWH 1:  Maybe you haven’t heard.  But Judge Boasberg is now in charge of all firing in the United States.

SJWH 2:  Yeah!  He’ll make you give us all our jobs back.

UA 1 (diving over the table and grabbing SJWH 1’s throat):  Arrgggghhhh!

SJWH 4: You’re invading his personal space!  INAPPROPRIATE!

Everyone in the room: Shut up, Bruce!!

And, scene.

Hamas delenda est.

Tesla Vandalizers Are Exactly Who You’d Expect Them to Be (posted 3/21/25)

Yesterday was the two-month anniversary of Trump’s swearing in.  Can you believe it?  Only two months!  I’ve got column ideas piling up like productive citizens caught in a traffic jam fleeing New York, California or Illinois, and I don’t know how I’ll get to most of them.

Columns about crime.  Columns about schadenfreude.  Columns on evergreen political topics, leavened with a dusting of humorous observations about Liz Warren being whiter than Edgar Winter singing A Whiter Shade of Pale in an igloo during the winter solstice. 

#wemustneverstopmockingher

But I can no sooner get a few sentences out before something funnier or more satisfying happens.  I’m just trying to keep my head above water over here!

Joy Reid gets fired, but before I can make a joke about her sitting on the street with a cardboard sign saying, “Will hate whitey for food,” some MSNBC host is asking why Trump has been in office for 12 minutes and egg prices are still so high?

I start brainstorming some sort of a “you didn’t mind a president whose brains were scrambled, but…” thing that’s not working, before Bret Baier notes that egg prices just dropped 10%. 

HA!  How ironic that—What’s that?  Margaret Brennan just said that the Nazis only took power in Germany because they loved free speech so much?

Okay wait, I’ve got something for that.  Yes, the Nazis were world-renowned for their passion for the free exchange of ideas.  “Ein volk, ein reich, ein free-wheeling debate,” that was their–   

Annddd…egg prices are down 25%. 

And Tampon Tim Walz was just celebrating that Tesla stock is way down…until someone pointed out that Minnesota government workers’ pensions have a bunch of Tesla stock in them.  D’oh!

I give up.  It’s too much winning.  I’ve got to start somewhere, so I’m sticking with Tesla for this one.

You’ve probably heard about all of the leftists who are very angry with Elon now.  They don’t like his fetish for free speech at Twitter/X; they don’t like his exposing and cutting leftist waste and corruption in government; they don’t like him rescuing astronauts, for some reason.

So they’re taking to various public fora (“archaic Latin plurals for 500, Alex”) with logically coherent, rhetorically persuasive critiques to change public perception through rigorous, democratic debate.

 HA! I kid. 

Actually, they’re threatening Tesla drivers, vandalizing dealerships and setting charging stations and cars on fire.

A few of these criminal masterminds have already been caught, and you’ll never guess what they’re like.  If by “you’ll never guess” I mean “you absolutely know.” 

Which I do.

Consider Contestant #1, Justin Thomas Nelson, who allegedly vandalized and threw Molotov cocktails at a Colorado Tesla dealership several times, before getting arrested on a return trip there several weeks ago. 

In keeping with my policy of giving you trigger warnings before you look these people up – remember “the bowling ball with eyes” illegal immigrant from Wednesday’s column? – I’ll paint you a picture, and you can proceed at your own risk. 

Justin looks like what would happen if Penn (from Penn and Teller) and Herman Munster somehow had a baby, and that baby grew up and got breast implants. 

You heard me.  Justin has got a Stage-4 case of gender dysmorphia, and I don’t think he’s been taking his meds.  He goes by the name “Lucy Grace Nelson,” and one look at his picture will bring out the Ricky Ricardo in you.  (“Luuuccy, you got some ‘splainin’ to do!”)  (“Timely comic references from 1952 for 100, Alex.”)

Nelson was listed on “her” driver’s license as “female,” which doesn’t fill one with confidence in the DMV.  I’m guessing that if I moved to Colorado and listed my gender as “marmoset,” some beaten-down Loveland cop would listlessly play along the next time I got caught speeding. 

“I see here that you’re a 6-foot-tall marmoset with green eyes and brown hair.  You still live on 5th Avenue?” 

 Anyway, Nelson’s booking sheet also lists him as female.  Because of course it does.  Aggravatingly, even the nominally conservative NY Post uses female pronouns to refer to Nelson in its story, and many media stories never mention that this “woman” ain’t one.

At least Nelson’s dad – Claiborne “Jerry” Nelson – seems to understand that he’s got a son. 

By the way, I’m not sure that Claiborne understands how nicknames work.  I get calling a Joseph “Joe,” or a Thomas “Tommy,” or even a Martin “Martacus.”  But how do you get “Jerry” out of “Claiborne?”

Though in his defense, it’s a lot shorter jump from “Claiborne” to “Jerry” than from “Justin” to freaking “Lucy!”

Where was I?  Oh yeah.  

Claiborne/Jerry describes Justin/Lucy in what I think may be the first-ever instance of a “5-implied- unexpectedly” paragraph.  To wit:

“He changed his name to Lucy a few years ago. [unexpectedly]  He’s in his early 40s, but has been living with this mother who has been taking care of him. [unexpectedly] He has emotional problems [unexpectedly] He hasn’t been able to keep a job. [unexpectedly!] Our entire family support[s] the Democrat party. [UNEXPECTEDLY!]”

There are pics in Justin’s social media labeled “baby gets her first bra” and “baby gets her first dress,” and you don’t want to see them.  But spoiler alert: they will NOT remind you of Jennifer Grey in Dirty Dancing.

Because sometimes somebody DOES need to put baby in the corner.

…of a room with bars on the door and windows.

Meanwhile, in South Carolina, Contestant #2 – Daniel Clarke-Pounder, 24 – also had the brilliant idea to attack a Tesla dealership with Molotov cocktails.  Ironically, he apparently throws more like a girl than Justin/Lucy does, or else he is easily fatigued.  Because he managed to set himself on fire with his fifth Molotov cocktail.

Sadly, all he lost was a burned shirt, and what little dignity he had.  

While his mug shot doesn’t have the “She’s a MAN, baby!” shock value of the Justin/Lucy pic, he does give off a bit of a Buddy Repperton vibe. (“I’ll take 1980s Stephen King movie references for $200, Alex.”)

Unfortunately for him, he looks a little softer in his social media photos.  He’s facing charges that could result in 20 years in prison, and if those old “Scared Straight” shows are accurate, Daniel might find that “Clarke-Pounder” is not only his last name, but his new cell-mate’s eventual nickname.

Can you imagine how it must feel to be a Democrat today?  Their political leaders are Ken-Doll Newsom, Jasmine “Fake-Lashes” Crockett, and Juicy Booty.  Their men are women, and their women are crazy.  They were just swept in the swing states, DOGE is derailing their gravy train, their bag of dirty tricks is as old and ineffective as Imhotep Pelosi, and their approval ratings are in the toilet. 

And it’s only been TWO MONTHS!

Hamas delenda est!

The Dems Can’t Help Themselves, Especially Gavin Newsom (posted 3/18/25)

Well, the Dems continue to compete in a hilarious triathlon of political ineptitude.  They start by jumping on bikes and ramming into one pothole after another, then dismount and vigorously run for 100 meters through a lane full of rakes, then shoulder an Olympics-approved rifle and begin firing into their own feet.

But before I get to that, how fun was it to watch Elon’s son X bouncing excitedly alongside Trump as they walked to the Marine One helicopter together the other day? 

It was so cute that even the most hard-hearted MSM hack had to almost say, “Awww,” before furiously catching herself.   “NO!  That’s Hitler and Lil’ Hitler! Must…not…feel…authentic…emotion.”

Of course the beauty of that moment came partly from the question of contrast that instinctively struck anyone watching: “Can you imagine letting your kid into Biden’s custody to walk him over to a helicopter?” 

The question answers itself.  [Cue Doctor Evil, humming up in his gliding chair and then pausing dramatically.  “How about NO?!”]

Biden managed to make walking across a butter-soft lawn – in his specially-designed, codger-friendly, waffle-stomper shoes – look like hold-your-breath-while-Wallenda-tightropes-over-an-active-volcano high drama. 

And the idea of Biden lifting a kid to put him onto a set of aircraft stairs?!  Just trying to navigate the stairs by himself turned into something that looked like a montage of out-takes from the Eiger Sanction and a frontal assault on El Capitan.

Hey, here’s a question for you: How do we know that Gavin Newsom is smarter than a Hezbollah terrorist who STILL answers calls from unknown numbers on his Samsung De-Crotch-ulator 3000 pager?  (Yell-o?  Allahu akb-OUCH!)

It’s a trick question, of course, because we don’t.  In fact, the only credible evidence that can be asserted in defense of that hypothesis is that he was at least smart enough to apparently agree in an interview with Charlie Kirk that allowing males to stomp women in sports obviously unfair.     

But how do we know that Gavin Newsom is smarter than LA Mayor Karen “rhymes with” Bass? 

First, because just about every sentient being is smarter than Karen Bass.  (Although I wouldn’t bet a single lonely dollar on an IQ-off among Bass, Que Mala, AOC and any patient chosen by random lottery from a head trauma ward at a major metropolitan hospital of your choice.  So, yeah.)

Second, because Bass managed to be in Ghana – which my crack team of mapologists tells me is pretty far away from Los Angeles – when the fires very predictably broke out, but then parlayed that idiotic move into a series of ever worsening idiocies.  

Despite a boatload of public records laws requiring that she preserve all governmentally significant communications for at least 2 years, she…wait for it… “set her phone NOT to save text messages” during the crisis. 

“Martin, who does that?” you might ask. 

Until you think for a nano-second, and the question answers itself: 

1. Bill Clinton on a “Welcome to the White House, New Interns” group chat.  2. Hunter Biden conducting a shady, “How much am I offered for this crude finger-painting?” group auction on a “Go-Corrupt-Me” fundraiser with a dozen dirty foreign officials and oligarchs.   

And 3. The mayor of a horribly run blue city on a private plane in international airspace as she flop-sweats through an inauthentic dashiki while her city is burning to the ground.

Duh.   

Then, back on the ground but air-headed as ever, she gave a press conference amidst wisps of acrid, blowing smoke on what looked like the Gone With the Wind movie set showing the aftermath of Sherman burning Atlanta:

Bass: “I’m demanding a complete investigation into the mayor’s actions during this crisis.”

Reporter: “Isn’t that you?”

Bass: “What now?”
Reporter: “You’re the mayor.”

Bass: “Um, yes.  And I’m going to leave no stone unturned to get to the bottom of my actions.”

Reporter: “Couldn’t you just tell us that, now?

Bass: “Well, there are a lot of records to go through, and I want to be super-thorough.”

Reporter: “So you’ll be releasing all your texts, emails and phone calls?”

Bass: “Um, yeah.  About that…”

Ugh.  Remember that Hezbollah dullard I mentioned earlier?  He’s sitting in a hospital in Lebanon, wrapped in gauze from neck to ankles, his face blackened by smoke and his eyebrows singed off, trying to explain what happened to his family members gathered around the bed.

“These telemarketers are driving me crazy!  I’ve gotten three calls today, and now I’ve got one eye, one testicle and three fingers left!”  (There’s a ring-tone of “Hava Nagila” from his bedside table.) “Oh wait a second, I’ve got to take this.”

And his uncle grabs the pager, and rolls his eyes at the other family members, who are all face-palming themselves.  “Hey, at least he’s still smarter than Karen Bass.”

But now Ken Doll Newsom has been asked for his emails covering the same period, and Mr. Featureless Plastic Crotch is not dumb enough to try the ol’ “the dog ate my text messages” defense.  Instead, he’s going with a claim that “they’re exempt from disclosure under the California Public Records Act.” 

Apparently, his lawyers are suggesting that if you read the fine print closely, you’ll find that under the California Public Records Act, public records in California may be hidden from the public, at the whim of any Dem corrupticrat who might be revealed as a nice haircut on top of an empty head in an empty suit, if his public records were to be revealed.  In public.

Newsom isn’t even trying to meet the bare requirements of the law by designating which records he’d like to hide and for what reason.  This despite the fact that the CA constitution was amended in 2004 by Proposition 59, which asserted that “the people have the right of access to information concerning the conduct of the people’s business” as a foundational principle.  This proposition was known as the “Sunshine” amendment.

But Veneer Boy’s lawyers have an answer for this too, as you’ll see in this quote that I am totally making up, yet which still communicates their meaning perfectly: “We are fully abiding by the Sunshine amendment, which we interpret as enshrining any Democrat Governor’s inalienable right to cloak his public records in an impenetrable, Stygian darkness.  Hail Satan.” 

That guy is the current front-runner for your party’s nomination for President in 2028, Democrats.  And may God have mercy on your souls.

Oh, did I mention that it’s been revealed that Newsom secretly funded a $97,000 bust of himself that was recently placed in the San Francisco City Hall?

Because of course he did. 

David Hogg/Gavin Newsom ’28!

Also, Hamas delenda est!

Leftist Moral Inversions are Finally Being Corrected (posted 3/12/25)

One of the worst things about the Biden years – in addition to the whispering Crypt-Keeper-looking serial fabulist who was our Cadaver in Chief, and in addition to his sidekick the Cackling Banality, and in addition to the dudes dressed like women and the skyrocketing inflation and the porous border being over-run daily by illegals, and in addition –

Okay, now that I think about it, there were way too many terrible things about the Biden administration to even narrow down a Top 10 Worst Things list.  So let me start again.

One terrible aspect of the four-year plague of Biden-ness that descended on our land was the reversal of conventional morality that came to characterize much of our public life.

When terrorist-supporting radicals harassed and intimidated other students, our universities coddled the radicals and refused to help the students.

When thugs and rioters attacked police and businesses, the politicians forced the police to allow the lawlessness.

When disordered males invaded women’s sports and locker rooms, authorities chastised the women who complained, and gave their trophies and control over their privacy to the disordered males.

All of these cases and many more demonstrate that the old stereotype that conservatives are unfeeling while liberals are the cliched “bleeding hearts” is wrong.  Both groups sympathize with others, and we conservatives aren’t bothered by lefty bleeding hearts.  We just object to who they’re always bleeding for. 

When progressives see a criminal fighting a cop, they side with the criminal.  They don’t champion the cause of legal immigrants, but they’ll take to the streets to fight for illegal ones.  They prefer shoplifters over shop owners, and squatters over landlords, and subway attackers over a Marine who defends the passengers.

That’s why the last couple of months have been so invigorating for us.  After four years of escalating moral inversions, things have suddenly turned right-side-up again.  Consider several good-news stories from just the last week:

With Biden in office, sweethearts like “Palestinian” “activist” Mahmoud Khalil seemed to be running woke Ivy League campuses.  He has been a high-profile leader of campus protests, a participant in the “tent-ifada” encampment at Columbia, and an advocate for all sorts of Jew hatred and intimidation. 

In addition to being a “political affairs officer with UNRWA” – the corrupt, UN-funded entity that has helped Hamas at every turn – he has still been living in campus housing, even though he graduated in December.  As recently as last week, he participated in a takeover of a Barnard building.

But it’s a new day, and order is being restored.   ICE agents arrested Khalil last Wednesday, and revoked his visa and his green card.  When the news came out that the Trump administration is going to deport him, a lefty judge tried to stop that, but reports are that the administration had already moved him to a jail in Louisiana, where extremist NY judges are rightly ignored.  Beautiful! 

Columbia put out a whiny statement saying that it will not cooperate with ICE agents except where required by law.

And before I could yell, “Take away their funding!” the Trump administration took away their funding.   Or at least $400 million of it, in the form of grants and contracts. 

New SecEd Linda McMahon came off the top rope, citing the requirement that schools comply with federal antidiscrimination laws, and pointing out that universities have flouted that requirement for too long.  “Today, we demonstrate to Columbia and other universities that we will not tolerate their appalling inaction any longer.”

And before I could yell, “More funding cancellations, please!”  the Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism announced that, “More funding cancellations are likely to follow.”  YES!

The NY Post reports that the Feds “have more than $5 billion in grant commitments with the Ivy League university that are currently under review.”  As of Monday, an audit has begun, and I would love to be a fly on the wall in the faculty lounge right now!

The same FAFO process is happening all over the country.  At DHS, where some treacherous employees have been aiding illegals by leaking information about upcoming ICE raids, Kristi Noem has started polygraphing employees to catch the insurrectionists.  As of last Friday, two leakers have been found, and they’ll be facing felony prosecutions, and up to 10 years in federal prison if convicted. 

I’m sure that the talking heads in legacy media are howling about that, but I’m unable to hear them over my laughter.

Amidst the steady stream of illegal immigrants being sent back home, a bad hombre named Diego de la Vega beat Hulk Homan™ to the punch by deporting himself back to Colombia in December.  (The country, not the feckless university.)

If you haven’t heard of Vega, he might have done as much damage to our country as any of the criminal deportees you’ve heard about, including Mahmoud Khalil and the various face-tattooed gang bangers of Tren de Aragua.

Because Diego de la Vega was… wait for it… the former Communications Director for AOC!

Which raises a few questions about the Juicy Bootied One (her words, not mine), since it is not legal to hire illegals (duh!).  It might be too much to ask for, but how great would it be if Homan’s Heroes burst into Sandy’s congressional office right in the middle of her next “Choose Your Fighter” video and slapped the cuffs on her?      

Amidst all of these tales of the scales of justice being properly re-balanced, I have one last one for you.  It’s the story of Brad Sigmon, 67, who died last Friday in South Carolina’s electric chair. 

Sigmon had been on death row for 23 years, since he beat his ex-girlfriend’s parents to death with a baseball bat.  He’d planned to kidnap his ex and “take her away for a romantic weekend that was to culminate in a murder-suicide.”  I know: Brad had an unusual take on “romantic.” 

Anyway, there’s one thing about his story that makes Sigmon a little different than your garden-variety evil man who needed killing.  And that’s his method of execution.

Because while South Carolina’s death chamber is fitted out with an electric chair and a lethal injection set-up, Brad chose Door Number 3: a firing squad.  Because Brad Sigmon is old school! 

I mean, “was.”

He was placed in the electric chair and hooded, and a white target with a red bull’s eye was pinned to his chest.  Then three DOC employees with rifles gave him a 21-gun salute.  (Minus 18.)

I hope that his long delayed but well-deserved death gave some peace to his victims’ families, and I like to think that in his last moments, Brad Sigmon did his part to bridge our raucous political divide. 

Because he gave us one bleeding heart story that most conservatives can get behind. 

Hamas delenda est!

Reaction to Trump’s Quasi-SOTU Speech (posted 3/5/25)

I had a couple of topics to write about this morning, but they will have to wait until Friday, because I can’t not comment on last night’s State of the Union-adjacent speech.

I’ve written before about how I generally don’t like these things.  All of the rote jumping up and down in applause by the party in power, and the concomitant studied silence by the other party, the using of people in the crowd as props to put a human face on various political issues, etc.  

Because I’m a grumpy old man about this stuff, I prefer the way the early Founders handled SOTUs: they sent a letter that was read out in congress, and that was it.  

I’d like to return to that.  Just a handful of paragraphs hitting the highlights: “Our navy has whipped the Barbary Pirates, our cavalry has kept the raiding parties from the savage Warrens at bay on our western frontier (#wemustneverstopmockingher), and the sorghum crop this year is abundant.  Thank ye, and God bless America.”

But having said that, if you’re going to do a modern SOTU, this was the way to do it.  Though it was too long (they all are), there were a lot of strong lines. (My favorite was about the border:   “[The Dems] said that they needed a new law to secure the border, but all we needed was a new president.”)  

And Trump demonstrated his flair for the dramatic, with one feel-good announcement after another.  A key terrorist from the Abbey Gate attack has been captured and is on his way to face American justice; the young black kid who had brain cancer getting made an honorary agent; the high school kid being told he’s been accepted at West Point; Jocelyn Nungaray’s mom being told that a wildlife sanctuary has been renamed for her daughter; reading the letter from Zelensky saying that the minerals deal is back on, etc.

But perhaps the best news for the country to come out of the speech was the Democrats’ stunning demonstration that they are incapable of reading either a nation, a moment, or a room.  Because they are ineducable.  Bone-deep, weapons-grade stupid.

I’ll admit that it’s always a tough gig to be the out-of-power party at a SOTU.  You have to sit on your hands most of the night while the opposition is standing and applauding, and it’s not easy to do that without looking petulant.

But you know what’s an even worse look?  Heckling like children, and applauding only ONE THING in the entire speech, and choosing the worst possible thing for that one moment of applause.

They started the night off on the wrong foot, heckling and yelling out immediately.  You may  remember when one GOP congressman, after listening to Obama lie for half an hour straight in one of his SOTUs, yelled, “You lie!”  The entire MSM nearly melted down, and the hyperventilating lasted for days.  “This is unprecedented!  The most inappropriate violation we’ve ever seen!  Would he ever have yelled like that at a white president?  Racist!!”

But double standard, thy name is Democrat.   

The first and the worst offender was Al Green.  You might remember Al Green as a talented soul singer, but now his fine name has been besmirched by one of the worst Democrats in congress.  And that’s really saying something, considering that Melting Face Maxine Waters, Ilhan “Allahu Akbar!” Omar, and Juicy Booty AOC (her words, not mine) are all in the congress. 

The Democrat (bad) Al Green is tough to look at, and tougher to listen to.  Luckily, in the first few minutes of the speech he started to scream incoherently, and the GOP was ready for him, sending the Sergeant at Arms to escort him out.

Which brings up several questions for me:

1. What’s the point of having the title “Sergeant at Arms” if you aren’t armed?

2. If you are armed, why didn’t you let bad Al Green ride the lightning?  Are tasers broken? 

3. Since when are disordered lunatics allowed to carry a cane with a big metal head on it into the presence of the President? 

Obviously, the Sergeant at Arms missed a golden opportunity, because as soon as the bad Al Green started hollering and raised his cane, Sarge could have yelled, “CANE!  Swarm! SWARM!” and initiated a violent pile-on.

And if, once the agents had picked Green’s body up and carried him out, it turned out that his cane had been accidentally shoved into a position that required a doctor to remove it, that’s the chance you take when you bring a cylindrical object into a SOTU and act like a fool.

I would also have accepted a third option for dealing with Green, which regular readers may remember from a few earlier columns of mine.  I’m speaking, of course, of the Robot Flamethrower Dog!

Sure, some might object to deploying a RFD in the confined space of a SOTU.  But since bad Al Green was sitting amidst the other Democrats, what’s the worst that could happen?  Maybe a few facial burns – which in many cases would be a lateral move at worst, appearance-wise – and a few of those idiotic paddles being scorched. 

You say, “collateral damage,” I say, “collateral hilarity.”

And speaking of those paddles, what grade are those people in?!   Unless you’re going to a ping pong tournament, an auction, or a sick kink party at the Biden-era NSA, you should not be carrying a paddle around in public.

And the idiotic lines printed on the paddles reinforced the Dems’ terrible judgment in two ways: they were pre-printed, which meant that this bonehead stunt was premediated, and the printed phrases were such banal imbecilities.

“Musk Steals,” “False,” and “Save Medicaid.”  I’ve seen smarter messages on a Magic 8 Ball when I was a kid.

“Are these Democrats really going through with this childish stunt?”

“Signs point to yes.” 

“Is there a greater concentration of low-IQ numbskulls anywhere on earth right now?”

“My sources say no.” 

And Trump cannily set them up for the bad optics, with his riff on, “There is nothing I could say to make them happy, or to make them smile or applaud, even if I cured a terrible disease.” 

The Dems immediately proved him right.  They wouldn’t applaud for a black kid with brain cancer, or for terrorists being brought to justice, or for a 95-year-old mom getting her son back from a Russian prison.

So what was the one thing they were willing to celebrate? 

I’m not making this up.  When Trump challenged them, asking, “Do you want to keep this war [in Ukraine] going for another 5 years?” the morons started clapping.  Trump saw one of them, and took the personal shot, saying, “Pocahontas says yes.” 

And when the camera panned to the Powhatan Pale-Face herself, she doubled down on dumb, and applauded more vigorously.

She really is that out of touch!  This dowager with none of her (extremely white) skin in the game actually clapped for five more years of war.  “Yay!  Let’s fight to the last Ukrainian!”  

And that is why… say it with me again, people… 

#wemustneverstopmockingher!

Thinking About Governmental Job Losses (posted 3/3/25)

Before I get to my main topic, I have to note that on Saturday, CA Gov and featureless-plastic-crotch-having human-Ken-Doll Gavin Newsom (D)elinquent, declared a “state of emergency” for brush clearance due to wildfire danger. 

Which came as a much-appreciated warning to the residents of Pacific Palisades…except that the brush around their houses has already been cleared. 

By an enormous fire. 

Which also consumed their houses. 

Months ago.

Newsom would be a big hit in farm country, where I grew up.  He could walk up to farmhouses and holler through the screen door.  “Your horse escaped two days ago, and he’s just been seen three counties away.  So close your barn door immediately!  You’re welcome.”

And then he could try to make it off the property before the farmer or his wife could load the shotgun with rock salt.     

As you may have noticed, I’ve been having some fun lately mocking many of the government workers who have been getting laid off or fired, and deservedly so, including the treacherous deep-state “resistance” types, and corrupt leadership in the FBI, the military and elsewhere.

In Friday’s column, I mocked the disordered pervs at the NSA who spent their work hours on message boards talking about their polycules (don’t ask), the joys of castration (please, don’t ask!) and how good it feels to have one’s an*s lasered (for the love of all that is holy, DON’T ASK!!)    

But reader Jon Michael Watson – thanks for sharing the column, Jon – made a good point.  He said that while it is “proper that these lost and fallen gov’t employees are no longer sucking up taxpayer dollars,” many government workers are good people doing good work, and are getting tarred with the same brush.  (I paraphrased a bit, but I think I fairly summarized his meaning.)

Jon’s point is well taken, and worth remembering.  We all know that our national debt is unsustainable, and deep spending cuts are going to have to be made to avert a future economic collapse.  But those cuts are going to hurt some real people, and it’s a bad look to be gleeful about everybody losing their jobs.

“Martin,” you might be saying, “aren’t you being a hypocrite by saying that, especially after your world-class, hilarious send-up of the NSA kink ring last Friday, which should probably win a Nobel Prize for political humor, if only there were such a thing?”

First, who am I to fly in the face of public opinion on that second part? 

But re: hypocrisy, I plead guilty to a lesser count.  Is there such a thing as misdemeanor-level negligent hypocrisy?

At my sentencing, I would raise some extenuating circumstances to try to mitigate my sentence.

First, the corrupt legacy media has promoted a disgusting double standard about layoffs that enrages many of us normal folks.  When Biden killed the Keystone pipeline and the border wall on his first day in office, over 50,000 blue-collar American workers lost their jobs, and the MSM wrote zero stories sympathizing with their plight.

When some workers vented about their lost jobs, the Dem talking heads and elitist j-school snobs told them to “learn to code.”

But now those same dishonest hacks are running one story after another about every fired government employee trudging into the parking lot carrying a cardboard box.  And they’re casting every one of them as assiduous martyrs who were just about to find a cure for cancer, or else arranging for a parachute drop of food that would have saved starving orphan amputees in a Third World country that you couldn’t even find on a map, you ignorant capitalist pig!

Whereas I am at least trying to point out that there’s a difference between government employees doing legitimate work, and covens of polymorphously perverse loons who “work” from home. 

If by “work” you mean “organize leagues to play rectal laser tag.”      

By the way, that reminds me of Three Fundamental Life Rules that rank just below the 10 Commandments in their usefulness:

1. Never play pool for money with a guy who carries his own cue in a custom case. 

2. Never try to scatter a loved one’s ashes into the sea if the wind is blowing toward you.

3. There are no winners in rectal laser tag.

Where was I?  Oh yeah.

In all seriousness, I think the Trump team should be sympathetic to most people who lose their jobs because of the necessary cuts that are coming.  They can still expose and troll all of the idiotic DEI boondoggles and corrupt waste, but if they look gleeful about normal workers getting fired, they’ll do unnecessary political damage to the cause.

I’ve seen a few early signs of this in my own life.  About three weeks ago, my wife got an email saying that her job is being looked at as one that might be going away.  She works with a regional team of health professionals focusing on treating and preventing the spread of TB; because her work is funded only partly by our state, and the rest by the CDC, some job losses may be in the offing.

In the big picture, this is almost certainly a good sign for our nation.  Because while we hadn’t wiped out TB the way we had polio or smallpox, by around 50 years ago we’d contained it to a very small number of outbreaks and cases.  The resurgence of TB in recent decades has been coincident with large numbers of illegals crossing our borders.  If Trump is able to deport the lion’s share of illegals, the threat of TB will recede, and the feds will need to spend less on fighting it.  Again: a good thing for the country.

But yes, it would be more convenient for us if my wife’s group continued to work to counter outbreaks until the deportation process succeeds, and her job is made (happily) unnecessary.  She was already planning to retire in two years, by which time we would have paid off one of our rentals and the majority of another.  If her job does end this year, she would lose the income of her two final, highest-earning years, which would be less than great.

But we both know we are very lucky. We have saved enough and are close enough to retirement that the loss of two years’ salary will cause a little pain, but nothing like the upheaval and stress that younger and less financially stable workers will experience.   

Of course, we are happy Trump voters and love what he’s doing, but it’s also easier for us to support Trump and DOGE’s necessary efforts, because we see the big picture, and our sacrifices will be relatively minor ones.   But we shouldn’t overlook the fact that the great, long-term benefits are going to produce some pain and disruption in the short term.  And that it’s natural for even Trump supporters to sour when necessary job cuts hit them.    

Because we in CO Nation are decent people – and also because we want to do well in the midterms and in 2028! – we should be careful not to let our joy over the downfall of DEI, deep-state bad actors, and biological males stomping girls in sports, bleed over into celebrating the collateral damage caused by our long-delayed need to cut our shamefully bloated federal government and national debt.  

We should be as empathetic and kind to our fellow citizens who lose their government jobs as the leftists were callous and condescending to the pipeline and border wall workers who lost theirs. 

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get to work on this Wednesday’s column lambasting Hamas and sticking it to Jake Tapper.

Hamas delenda est!

I Won’t Miss the AP, or Joy Reid (posted 2/27/25)

Well, we’re back from Tennessee, and as usual the firehose of ridiculous political news has not let up.  So I’ve got a column today, with another one to follow tomorrow.

First though, I read all the comments on my Monday column, but didn’t have time to respond to them.  But I appreciate all of the kind words, and am glad that my Yosemite bathroom scenario landed.  However, I did not mean to impugn the fine people in the Master Locksmiths community! 

On the contrary, I intended to poke a little gentle fun at the hysterical leftists who are suggesting that firing one man with one bathroom key at Yosemite has caused our entire national park system to collapse.

One other bit of business: I have to give a shout out to Robert Desmond and Frederick Beal, two of the finest Americans in this or any other generation. 

Am I saying that just because they hit my Tip Jar hard last week?  (Which can be found at my webpage, Martinsimpsonwriting.com.) 

Maybe.  But I also like the cut of their respective jibs, and believe that they’ve demonstrated the kind of class and taste that should be a model for us all.  Not to mention their fantastic discernment when it comes to how to spend their political-humor-column dollar.  I thank and salute you, Desmond and Beal! (And though I’m no career counselor, that would make a hell of a law or accounting firm name.  Or possibly a regionally popular folk music duo.)

Okay, on to the cavalcade of imbeciles on the left over the last several days…

I’ve enjoyed watching the AP getting their gender nonbinary onesies over their heads and throwing a tantrum because Trump is keeping them out of the White House press conferences and off of Air Force One until they call the former Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. 

And because this is 2025 in America, when lefties throw a tantrum, it means crying in court.  The AP took their complaint to a District Court judge, who ordered an expedited consideration of their lawsuit, while refusing to give them an immediate TRO.    

My first instinct on hearing Trump’s name change for the Gulf was that it was a funny trolling of the left – what’s good for Comrade Goose is good for Commissar Gander, after all – but that it was also kind of silly.  But now that I’ve seen the left’s reaction to it, the idea has grown on me.

AP has insisted that they won’t bend the knee to Trump on this.  Or, I guess, bend the tongue?  (For anyone who just made up their own Kamala-interviews-with-Willie-Brown joke, grow up!) 

(Also: HA!)

Many people may feel like Trump is bullying AP by trying to coerce their use of his preferred language.  But I’ve had long experience with the AP, and that experience leads me to a different conclusion.

Regular readers may remember that I was an English professor for 30 years, before I retired to go into full-time hilarious genius-ing for CO Nation.  During much of that time, I used an influential citation and reference work called The AP Style Guide, which set standard usage rules for writers in many fields and majors.  As a young prof, many of my department-dictated syllabi required that students buy the AP guide. 

But as I gained seniority, wisdom and perspicacity – and the ability to throw around words like “perspicacity” – I also got more control over my syllabi and reading lists.  And I stopped requiring students to buy the AP guide.  Because it became more and more politically tendentious and hectoring. 

(I know: pretty perspicacious use of both “tendentious” and “hectoring,” right?  You’re not going to hear those in one of AOC’s or Aunty Maxine Waters’ low-IQ rants.)

Anyway, my point is that AP loves shaming and coercing undergrads into repeating their preferred terminology, using the threat of a lower GPA to force them into a twisted game of “Stalin Says.”  (It’s like “Simon Says,” but with more totalitarian humorlessness.)

The AP guide says that when writing about races of people, you must capitalize the first letter of “Black,” but keep the lower case for “white.”  It also decrees that illegal aliens should be called “undocumented,” that mothers be called “birthing persons,” and that gender denying mutilations be called “gender affirming care.”  

Also according to the AP, we’ve always been at war with Eastasia, and war is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength.

Oddly enough, AP has happily gone along with various past examples of political name changes, including agreeing to call Mt. McKinley “Denali,” the nation of Turkey “Turkiye,” and Kiev  “Kyiv.”

But I guess it’s (D)ifferent when Trump is the one making the name change.

I’m looking forward to seeing how this childish resistance ends.  Will the AP stubbornly consign themselves to forever sitting and pouting at the media kiddies’ table, rather than submit to the mean orange man the way they force cowed undergrads to submit to them?

Or will they finally surrender?  If so, I hope that Trump really rubs it in.  I picture him standing in front of a map of the northern hemisphere with a pointer in his hand, tapping one re-named feature after another. 

Trump (pointing to the former Greenland): What’s this called?

AP (mumbling): Trumpland.

Trump (tapping Canada): And this?

AP: the 51st state, America’s Evil Top Hat

Trump (tapping the former Denali): And this?

AP: Mt. McKinley

Trump (tapping a spot in South Dakota):  And this?

AP: Mount Trumpmore

Trump (tapping the Gulf): And this?

AP (staring at their shoes and muttering): The Gulf of America.

Trump (cupping a hand behind his ear):  I can’t hear you.

AP (louder): The Gulf of America!

Trump:  That’s better.  Now bend over, and I’m going to give you one stroke on the seat of your pants with this pointer for every day you got that wrong.

And, scene.   

I’ve got time for one more brief note, and it’s the feel-good story of the week: the firing of whitey-hating bile spewer, Joy Reid by MSNBC. 

You may remember Reid as the mean-spirited racial arsonist who gleefully sneered about “the white tears” of unfairly prosecuted people like Kyle Rittenhouse, non-violent J-6ers, and Catholic abortion protestors.    

My smokeshow wife (of Norwegian descent) remembers Reid mostly as a culturally appropriating scammer who adopted an unconvincing version of the blonde hair proudly worn by her Viking ancestors.  (“My culture is not your costume!” she may have shouted at our tv.) 

Reid’s show, like much of the pap on MSNBC and CNN, has taken a huge drop since the election, losing more than half of its already pathetic audience.  On one hand that makes sense, since getting so thoroughly stomped in an election would naturally depress her viewers. 

On the other hand, I think the kind of dead-enders who would still be watching Reid’s program before 11/5 would be motivated mostly by race-hatred, bitterness and incipient mental illness anyway, all of which she has catered to after the election as much as she did before.

Most leftist talking heads – as well as Reid herself – blamed… wait for it… racism and sexism for her firing.

Unexpectedly!

But you’d think that her latest horrifically low ratings would give even those blockheads pause.  Because in a nation of around 330 million people, Reid has recently had 59,000 viewers in the key demo of 18-49 year olds. 

59,000!  On what passes for a major tv network!  By comparison, on the slowest of nights, the RDN (Ring Doorbell Network) captures 100K viewers, and a recent two-part special entitled, “Latex vs Oil-Based?” on the WPDN (Watching Paint Dry Network) was seen by 70K viewers.  

Reid’s final show was the only must-see tv she ever participated in, and then only because she actually cried in the final moments before well-deserved obscurity descended upon her like J.B. Pritzker descending on a giant ice-cream cake. (#putdownthatcomicallyoversizedturkeyleg) 

I’m too much of a gentleman to mock Reid’s “black tears.”  In fact, she might have actually been comforted to see the white tears I cried as MSNBC tossed her under the garbage truck that Trump drove to one of his campaign events. 

Until she realized that those were white tears…of laughter.

Hamas delenda est!

Loving the First Month of Trumpkrieg™, Despite a Few Stumbles (posted 2/21/25)

I’m up in Tennessee now — with the wife, one daughter and the Wonder Dog — visiting my mom, while my sister and her hubby are taking a well-deserved trip. We drove up on Tuesday, and got to see two brief snowfalls since we got here, which partially made up for it being too cold to take mom out for walks in and around town.

Regular readers may remember that my mom has Alzheimer’s, and she’s experiencing the gradual sliding involved in that disease. We have to remind her many times each day that this is her home, and we won’t be leaving until after my sister gets back home, and she’ll never be alone.

But she’s still got her sweet disposition, and she loves to laugh, and the stories that I tell her about her and my dad and our lives together never fail to delight her. Some of them she remembers, and enjoys the remembering. Some of them she doesn’t, but even with those, there’s a special grace in the way she experiences them for the first time, each time.

While we’ve been enjoying our time with her, the world has continued to turn, and the Trumpkrieg™ continues apace. But Trump has finally taken a few wrong steps, IMHO. His pick for Sec Labor seems to be a hostile lefty; while I think her nomination is a mistake, it’s a minor one, because if she behaves in office the way she has before, I think Trump will fire her pretty quickly.

More seriously, I’m surprised by the way he’s handling the Ukraine situation. I know that Zelensky has been acting a little too entitled lately, and Ukraine has had corruption problems that pre-date this war. But I admire Zelensky’s guts – when Biden’s first instinct was to offer him a flight out of the country after Putin invaded, he said he wanted to stay and fight, and I’ve generally got a soft spot for Davids taking on Goliaths.

So while I think that Trump rightly wants to pressure both sides to take an off ramp that will end the war, it sucks that Putin is going to gain some land when the dust settles, necessary though that may be. Whatever Zelinsky’s flaws, they pale in comparison to Putin’s evil invasion, and Trump’s claims that Ukraine started the war are idiotic. By coming down so unfairly hard on Ukraine, he’s also strengthening Putin’s negotiating hand, a misstep that sharply contrasts with Trump’s usually skillful application of pressure.

Still, having said all of that, Trump’s first month has been amazingly successful. With Kash Patel’s confirmation, he’s rounded out a cabinet of downhill runners that promises more victories to come, and more Democrat malfeasance to be revealed.

And holy cats, are the Dems ever continuing to play right into his hands, and hitching their wagons to one unpopular cause after another! They’re trying to elicit sympathy for illegal gang-bangers getting deported, and IRS agents getting laid off. They valorize corrupt, soft-insurrectionist bureaucrats who publicize their own resignations in a vain attempt to cast insubordination as righteous self-martyrdom. (This isn’t an airport, drama queens – you don’t have to announce your departure. Just cram your participation trophies into cardboard boxes and go!)

Trump’s filling his roster with alpha dogs and apex predators, and the Dems are fielding pencil necks, white squaws (#wemustneverstopmockingher) and wet-behind-the-ears non-binary they/thems like Lil’ Davy Hogg!

And the self-beclowning self-owns! The glorious, hilarious, oblivious self-owns!

Al Sharpton – the walking embodiment of “unfit for any office” – actually sounded outraged when he asked the dozens of MSNBC viewers to imagine what Madison or Jefferson would think of Trump’s attempt to “overthrow the government!”

Nevermind the difference between “fixing” and “overthrowing.” Sharpton wants his listeners to recoil in horror at the thought of our Founders’ disgust at someone trying to revolt against a government. Why, that kind of terrible behavior could even lead to a war!

Some might call such a hypothetical war… and I’m just spit-balling here… a “revolutionary” war!

Who wants to tell the desiccated, un-revered un-reverend?

And that wasn’t even the stupidest attack attempt of the week! That dishonor goes to poor Margaret Brennan, who by now has been publicly depantsed more often than AOC at a Miss Juicy Booty contest. (Her words, not mine.)

When Brennan wanted to grab the “20” end of an 80-20 issue by taking the “anti-” position on free speech, she chose the stupidest historical example that anyone could possibly pick.

While interviewing Marco Rubio, she seemed bothered that JD Vance had called Europeans out on their hostility towards free speech, especially since he did so while he was in Germany. She noted that Vance “was standing in a country where free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide,” and closed her question with the insulting assertion that Vance’s delivery of the speech in Germany “changed the tone [of his message]. And you know that.”

Ugh. Ignorant and condescending is no way to go through life, Marge.

Margaret thinks the Nazis weaponized free speech. Now I don’t know if you’re a history buff, but…do you have to be a history buff for that to sound a little strange to you?

Like most middle-aged straight guys, I’ve read a lot about WWII. And I don’t remember the part when Hitler was constantly vexed by the vibrant German-Jewish press, with their kvetching about his pogroms, and their strongly worded op-eds pushing for him to build fewer death camps. Right up until the end of the war, the Berlin Kosher Press was a thorn in Hitler’s side.

Or that’s the way it happened in Margaret’s imagination. But in the real world, the Nazis were actually pretty skilled at weaponizing one thing.

[Begin Sam Kinison filter] WEAPONS!! OH! OHHHHHHHH!! [end Kinison filter]

Stuka dive bombers early on, the first jet fighter plane at the end of the war, and the V-1 and V-2 rockets. Innovative U-boat wolf pack tactics, and tank designs like the Panther, Tiger and King Tiger. The Nazis were whiz kids when it came to weaponizing weapons. But a free, candid and open exchange of ideas?

Not so much.

In fact, I saw several stories that noted the reality, i.e. that the Weimar government (preceding Hitler’s rise) had very restrictive speech codes that they used against the nascent Nazi party, including preventing Hitler and Goebbels from speaking publicly for several years.

Ironically, those speech restrictions helped Hitler to rise. Many Germans wondered what these Nazis were saying that so antagonized the government, and being censored gave them a frisson of forbidden attraction. A famous Nazi propaganda poster showed Hitler with tape over his mouth, capitalizing on the idea that he was being kept down by the censors.

And of course, as soon as they gained power, the Nazis doubled down on the speech restrictions, killing or driving out any publishers or journalists who criticized Nazism.

The truth is that the Nazis weaponized speech restrictions to help them gain power, and then weaponized speech repression to help them hold onto power. Just like the Biden administration. (And no, I’m not saying that the Dems are as bad as the Nazis.) (And not just because the Nazis were competent.)

So pull up your pants and take a seat, Margaret!

On second thought, you keep doing you, Ms. Brennan.

But make sure that you’re always wearing clean undies, because the American people are going to be seeing a LOT of them over the next four years.

#mooningMargaret

Hamas delenda est!