Tag: trump

Turn the EOs into Laws, Settle the Filibuster, + David Hogg Bellies up to the Trough (posted 2/17/25)

Regular readers know that I am enjoying the Trumpkrieg™ as much as anybody. But I’m concerned that I haven’t heard much about following up the quick and easy victories of Executive Orders by pushing bills that will codify them into law. (I know, EOs are neither as quick nor easy as they should be, since the left has an army of biased judges who can temporarily delay their implementation. But I’m confident that they will still be enacted relatively quickly.)

I love the bracing effect of a volley of EOs unleashed on Biden’s legacy, like the first fusillade sent down range against the enemy after a besieged Marine unit receives fresh ammo in the middle of a battle.

But EOs alone produce a “sugar high” that quickly dissipates. In 2017 Trump wiped away a bunch of Obama’s EOs. (And there was joy and rejoicing amongst right-thinking people!) Then Biden wiped away Trump’s EOs in 2021. (And darkness descended.) And now Trump is returning the favor.

Since anything done by EOs can be undone by them, we need to move quickly to pass laws, especially in areas where we’ve got the “80” position on an 80/20 issue. Use the same EO language to pass laws banning men from women’s sports, locker rooms and prisons, for example.

Then, when the Dems take back the White House (shudder), rather than just signing an EO that lets men start beating women in sports and raping them in prisons again, the Dem president (shudder) will have to go to the American people and say, “Let’s let the dudes back into women stuff.”

Good luck with that, hypothetical future Democrat president! (hypothetical shudder)

In some cases, we might not need this. For example, the EO on birthright citizenship is heading to SCOTUS, and they could rule correctly, giving the ban the force of law going forward.

But I’m still a belt-and-suspenders guy: even if SCOTUS might do the right thing eventually, it would be nice to try to pass a law explicitly ending birthright citizenship. Even if it didn’t pass the first time, getting a bunch of Dems on record opposing it would help us whip a bunch of them in a future election, and then maybe a second attempt would be successful.

The same should happen for all of our 80/20 issues. Put them on the floor, and force the Dems to vote against them.

I saw one intriguing way to possibly bolster this effort. (I’d give credit to the writer if I remembered where I saw it. Maybe on the Daily Wire?) The idea is that the GOP congress should immediately propose and start pushing a law codifying the filibuster for regular legislation, with a one-year deadline to pass it.

But the GOP should warn the Dems that if by the end of next January they have successfully opposed it and it hasn’t passed, the GOP will immediately kill the filibuster themselves, and jam through every bit of legislation that Trump wants. In that context, smart Dems would have a big incentive to vote for legislation to keep the filibuster, knowing that if they don’t, the GOP is going to run rough-shod for the next year, and possibly 3 years.

So far, the filibuster has only been a customary practice, which we saw when Harry Reid threw it out for lower court judge confirmations, thus allowing us to put judges on SCOTUS with 51 votes. (HA!) And before the election, many Dems were saying they would get rid of the filibuster for all legislation, arguing that the evil GOP was “thwarting the will of the people” by adhering to it.

As an O.G. conservative, I like the filibuster, because it prevents faddish passions from driving whiplashing policies. But a prerequisite for a functional filibuster is the existence of two sides operating in good faith, so that some party members are willing to cross party lines to support reasonable ideas proposed by the opposition.

Does ANYBODY think that’s the world we’re living in? If Trump gets to nominate someone for SCOTUS, and there are 47 Dem senators, and there is no way that any Trump nominee will get more than one Dem vote. (Zero, if a second coconut falls on Fetterman’s head and he reverts to his leftist priors.)

So why would I want to keep the filibuster? Because as much of an obstacle as it is to us now, if it were codified into law it would be much harder to overturn, and will thus be a similar obstacle when the Dems get a small majority later.

However, if the Dems don’t take the deal by next January, we can’t continue to live by rules that we know the Dems will trash as soon as they regain power. Toward the end of Biden’s term, they seriously talked about killing the filibuster, stacking the SCOTUS and adding Puerto Rico and DC as new states. And they likely would have done AT LEAST the former if they’d won in November.

So let’s force the issue. If they want to play by the rules, that’s our thing. But if they expect to change the rules to gain an unfair advantage, we’ve got to beat them at their own game, by beating them to the punch.

Because like the big guy in the new Army ad said: Stronger parties are harder to kill.

Switching gears, I’ve got some fun examples of recent leftist self-owns, but this column is getting long, so I’ll save them for Wednesday.

In the meantime, I’m happy to report that the choice of Lil’ Davy Hogg as the DNC vice chair is already paying dividends.

For us.

Remember when Cankles McPantsuit and the rest of the left were making fun of Elon’s DOGE tech wizard wunderkinder because they were so young? (This was about two weeks ago.) But then the DNC picked their own 24-year-old blunderkind. And he immediately showed that he’d learned from his leftist elders by starting a money-making grift for himself.

He used the party’s “sucker list” to solicit donations for his own private PAC, which pays him over $100K per year.

Sorry, that was supposed to be “donor list.”

Or was it?

Anyway, the smarter Democrats – I know: they can fit in a phone booth at this point – are probably realizing that they screwed the pooch by electing Hogg.

Ooh, which reminds of this older tweet of Hogg’s that I just came across: “I’m never planning on having kids. I would much rather own a Porsche and have a Portuguese water dog and golden doodle. Long term it’s cheaper, better for the environment and will never tell you that it hates you or ask you to pay for college.”

So many thoughts. Starting with, on the list of things to worry about happening in the future, Davy Hogg fathering kids is not one of them. Because: biology.

Second, if he does manage to impregnate somebody, and if future college admissions are offered based on merit (Because: Trump!), I don’t think Davy will have to worry about paying for college for any dullards he manages to sire.

My favorite part of this story is the name of Hogg’s political action committee: “Leaders We Deserve PAC.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Hogg/Warren 2028!

I Pour Concrete, and Trump Takes the 80 in Many 80/20 Issues (posted 2/12/25)

I poured a concrete slab behind our house today.  After nearly 40 years in Florida, we lost power for longer than a day twice this year, so I’m breaking down and getting a generator.  Hence the need for a slab for the generator to sit on.

I rented an electric concrete mixer and bought twenty-seven 60-pound bags of concrete, and after spending some time over a couple of days digging out a ton of roots, putting in some rebar and putting together wooden forms, I was ready to pour. 

Before you can ask how many people I had helping me, I’ll refer you to my wife’s oft-repeated observation that I am a stubborn Appalachian-American, and that I still think I’m 27 years old.  Partly because that’s how time works, and partly because if you saw me with my shirt off, you’d say, “That guy looks like an Olympic athlete.  What is he, 27 or 28?”

Anyways (dammit – AOC has gotten into my head with that!), while the job would have gone pretty easily with two or three guys, I figured, “Hey, I’ve got the strength of ten men – because my heart is pure – and I’m an Ameri-can, not an Ameri-can’t.  So I can knock this out solo.”

My first clue should have been that as I loaded the bags of concrete into my 22-year-old pick-up, the rear end sank noticeably low, and the back tires bulged out in an alarming way. Like Jerry Nadler without a suit jacket on. 

It turns out that I hadn’t really done the math on how much twenty-seven 60-pound bags of concrete weigh. 

Yeah, I know NOW.  1620 pounds.  That’s like 3.3 cast members of the View!

Before you can ask, yes, I now have myself a fine new cement slab.  And yes, Cassie the Wonder Dog’s paw print is preserved in the southwest corner of that slab.

However… now I’m on muscle relaxers.  Which have made me drowsy and a little dopey, and I’m not looking forward to getting up tomorrow morning.

I’ll still do it (see the aforementioned “Ameri-can” reference above), with the assistance of some Vitamin M. (Motrin.)  But before I took the magic pills, I’d already drafted part of a mid-week column. 

So let’s all play a game of, “Can I tell which parts Martin wrote on muscle relaxers?”

First off, in Trumpkrieg™ news, weeping and gnashing of teeth could already be heard in Dem circles as the name was being taken off the USAID HQ building a few days ago.  But the wailing got even louder when a Trump spokesman announced the new tenant who would be moving in.

The old USAID building will soon be the new home of… wait for it…US Customs and Border Protection!

Cut to me, re-enacting the Meg Ryan diner scene in “When Harry Met Sally.” 

Even though we may be reaching the “too much winning” threshold, I still need stories like this to be turned into powder form, then put into a spoon with a drop of liquid, then heated up and drawn into a syringe.  And then

Injected. Straight. Into. My. Veins!

Scott Jennings recently pointed out – to a bunch of pouting dopes on CNN – that Trump has been capturing the “80” position on many political issues in which public opinion breaks down to 80/20.       

Closing the border, deporting illegals, re-criminalizing crime, keeping males out of female sports and locker-rooms – all have disproportionate popular support. Even on small issues like paper straws (nobody likes them!) and getting rid of daylight savings time, Trump has the winning side. 

His job is made a lot easier by the fact that the late-stage-TDS-suffering Dems have been eager to jump on the “20” position with both feet.

It’s hard to remember this, but after Trump’s debate with Biden – the one that went so badly for the Cadaver in Chief that it knocked him out of the race entirely – 20% of viewers said that they thought that BIDEN won it! 

Those are the geniuses who are sitting around sucking on disintegrating paper straws, while smiling at videos of male boxers punching females into next week, and sympathizing with face-tattooed gang-bangers as they block traffic on interstates while protesting with giant Mexican flags.

Normally, one would expect that a politician would have a harder time cutting government spending, because while many people see that as 80/20 in the abstract, they change their mind when specific cuts are identified.  That’s always been frustrating for conservatives, and it’s a big reason why government has always gotten bigger.

But Trump may be able to turn this issue in his favor too, because four factors have changed recently:

1. Our national debt has been metastasizing for years, but now we are frighteningly broke.  When Obama took office, all of the debt accumulated from George Washington to George W was $10 trillion.  In 8 years, Obama doubled that to $20 trillion.  (Si, se puede!) Trump added to that (especially during his last year/Covid), and Biden super-charged it, and now we owe $36 trillion.  That can’t continue, and more people might be willing to face our debt denial.  

2. The Dems have lied so much, so shamelessly, and so badly, that nobody trusts anything they say about the benefits of USAID-style, deep-state spending, or what it is supposedly going for.

3. The scope of the USAID revelations have surprised many people.  We now know more about the narrowness of the special interests who have been getting the money: non-binary whittling dwarves in Micronesia; a slam poetry contest for Mongolian throat-singers in Tajikistan; “Anti-White Hate Fest ’24!” put on by racial grifter Ibram X. Kendi (real name “Henry Rogers”), and a Go-Fund-Me to get Sunny Hostin electroshock therapy to try to get that misfiring noggin of hers back in working order.

4. The total tax burden made up of all of these fiscal straws is finally to the point that we’re getting as sway-backed as Cankles Clinton, just trying to hold up under the weight. 

So most of us are now ready to toss off the Micronesian dwarves and the Mongolian throat-singers, and we’ll try giving Sunny a free kick in the head to see if that helps with her neural sputtering. 

And with all due respect, Henry Rogers/Kendi, you can kiss our non-racist white arses.

Hogg/Warren, 2028!

Biden Loses His Security Clearance, Dems are Stopped by Hero Outside Building, and Don’t Understand That Unelected Bureaucrats Ran USAID (posted 2/10/25)

Regular readers know me as someone who is rarely surprised by political events.  I’ve usually got my ear to the ground, my nose to the grindstone, and my finger on the nation’s pulse.  Which explains my four consecutive national Twister championships in the 1990s.

Where was I?

Oh yeah. ADHD.

Anyways (to quote a certain Latina with a Juicy Booty – her words, not mine), I’m not often surprised by political events.  But I was definitely caught off-guard when I heard that Trump took away Joe Biden’s security clearance on Friday. 

Mostly because… why on earth would Joe Biden still have a security clearance?!

He couldn’t stay awake for his briefings when he was president.  And now he’s a civilian, and has signed with famous talent agency CAA – I’m not making that up… because I couldn’t – and is working hard on memorizing his lines for the starring role in “Weekend at Bernies 3: This Time it’s Presidential!”  So how could he possibly find time to receive intelligence briefings?  And for what purpose?

When I looked into this, I was surprised to find that we generally allow former presidents to keep their security clearances and receive intelligence updates, even though they no longer have any ability to act on them, or any reason to know what’s in them.  So we should cut that out immediately, for all past presidents.

But good lord, for Joe Biden?  That guy couldn’t be trusted with secret information when he was a hack senator, or a hack VP, or a hack president.  And that was before he lost his marbles!

In addition to these other reasons, Trump was justified in yanking Biden’s clearance as an act of karmic justice, since Biden had yanked Trump’s clearance as soon as Biden became president. 

Or, as Trump so Trumpily put it in his announcement, “[Biden] set this precedent in 2021, when he… [stopped] the 45th President (ME!) from” receiving intel details.  He also threw in another crisp jab (as is his wont), saying, “The Hur Report revealed that Biden suffers from ‘poor memory’ and, even in his ‘prime,’ could not be trusted with sensitive information.” 

Ouch!  By the way, has there ever been a more justified used of scare quotes than referring to Joe Biden’s “prime?”  And you’ve got to love that all-caps “ME!”

Still, it’s got to be humiliating to have your security clearance publicly and justifiably taken away.  (Just ask the corrupt 51 Hunter-laptop-denying “national security officials,” who can no longer sell themselves as knowledgeable insiders, even to the dozens of gullible, tin-foil-hat-wearing shut-ins who make up the audience of CNN.) So maybe it’s a mercy that at least Joe Biden didn’t live to see this happen to him.

In other news, you’ve probably heard the cliché that “all heroes don’t wear capes.”  Well this past Friday we learned the truth of that saying, when we met one of my new idols: the anonymous security guard outside the Education Department HQ’s front door in Washington.   

Instead of a cape or a uniform, the guard wore earth-tones, a pair of glasses perched on his head, and an expression half-way between a poker face and the iconic picture of Ben Affleck with his eyes closed in tortured world-weariness.   

That lone paragon of virtue stood his ground when confronted by a motley mob of far-left malcontents from the bowels of the Crazy Caucus in the House of Representatives, bent on forcing their way into the building and staging an idiotic yet telegenic (they hoped) show of resistance to Trump. 

The unassuming hero had neither a badge, nor a gun, nor pepper spray. Nor even narcissist spray, which would have been super useful against the empty-headed camera hogs bearing down on him. 

But he had a few things that his foes were unprepared for: the patience of Job, a resting heart rate that never went above 50 beats per minute, and an expression of barely contained contempt, along with implacable boredom.  That’s a guy you’d want next to you in a foxhole!

Put yourself in his place.  He’s used to standing guard while an endless line of dead-eyed, low-T mediocrities trudge into and out of the unnecessary building, to engage in a variety of foolish tasks, all of them utterly useless. 

The highlight of his year is probably when some sad parade of protestors marches by, featuring signs with ridiculous slogans like, “Pay me not to Work!” “Fiscal Prudence is Racist!” or a perverted version of the Gadsden flag reading, “Don’t Misgender Me!”

But on that fateful Friday, he looks down the street and sees a shambling clot of pitchfork-carrying mouth-breathers slouching toward the building he’s sworn to protect from the likes of them.  Then he sees, in the middle of the pack, some pitiable, damned soul who was apparently in some sort of a terrible fire. The skin of her face appears to be sloughing off the front of her skull, her mouth just a garish red smear of—

Oh no, wait.  That’s just Maxine Waters. 

(Which is plenty bad enough, even though it’s not a horrific creature out of a Stephen King novel like he initially feared.) 

As she got closer, he could tell that she hadn’t been in a fire.  Because if she had, that unconvincing wig she’s got on would have gone up like a Roman candle, producing a plume of coal-black smoke like a tire fire on the edge of town.

Still, the sight of Melting-Face Maxine up close would be enough to send lesser men screaming into the night, or falling to their knees and trying to gouge their eyes out.  If we could have found a way to deploy her to Kandahar when a Marine patrol was under heavy attack from the Taliban, she could have leapt up from ambush and stared at the enemy, croaking in her gravelly voice.

What followed would look like a Fourth of July fireworks show, as hardened jihadi fighters up and down the line triggered their suicide vests, just to escape from that hellish vision.

Anyway, it was spectacular, and I’ve added that video to my short list of things to watch whenever I need a little pick-me-up.  I had two favorite moments in particular.

1. Arrogant Maxine tried to bully the guard, insisting that he show her his ID.  It’s a tribute to his fortitude that he didn’t growl in her face, “I thought IDs are racist, you hideous crone.  Begone!”

2. One congresswoman in the back of the pack – in an obnoxious variation on, “Do you know who I am?” – called out, “There are no thieves or thugs here.  We are MEMBERS OF CONGRESS!”  

Quick, somebody call Kamala, because this lady needs a Venn Diagram to explain the flaw in her thinking.  

As with so many events over the last three weeks, the internet had a field day with the guard, coming up with names and titles for him.  Among my favorites are, “Captain DOGE,” “Gandalf the Chill” (“You shall not PASS!”), or the new “Secretary of Zero F’s to Give.” 

This incident is just one more proof that the Dems are still in such disarray in the face of Trump’s whirlwind of EOs, surprise announcements, and verbal groin kicks. The poor dopes don’t know whether to scratch their watches or wind their butts, as the old saying goes. 

They’ve made numerous pathetic attempts to stop the Trumpkrieg™ (copyright by me, right now).  They raised pointless filibusters to several of Trump’s nominees, which only resulted in those nominees being confirmed a day or two later than originally planned.

They’ve also gone out to microphones in front of several government buildings, where one pol after another got up and railed, grunted and gibbered about Orange Hitler this, and dictator that, and the “he can’t do this” other thing. 

One scary-looking congress-troll howled that he was filing impeachment papers against Trump, while he swung around a cane that looked like something a Democrat would beat Frederick Douglass with in 1861, right before the GOP armies marched south and whipped the Demfederacy and freed their slaves.

Chuck Schumer also showed up – cameras were there, so duh! – and he was creepier than usual.  He leaned down into the camera with his hands half-curled near his face, which gave him a look I can only describe as Nosferatu-esque. 

He then started the saddest chant I’ve ever seen, saying, “We will win.  We will win.” After a minute, Melting-face Maxine jumped into the frame (forcing me to recoil and say, “GAH!!” scaring Cassie the Wonder Dog and my wife), and he grabbed her hand and raised it, as the pathetic chant was dying out. 

Then Maxine croaked out a common refrain that many Dems have latched onto lately, and which I can’t figure out. “Elon, nobody elected your ass!”

Does the Democrat base not understand that most of the people who actually make our government run – for good or ill – are not elected?  Chiefs of staff, spokespeople, 99% of every department and agency – all are unelected.  Even cabinet members, though confirmed, are not elected. 

Let me put this in the form of a Q&A so simple that even AOC can understand:

Q: Can Elon Musk cut the budget of USAID, or close it down, or fire the ne’er-do-wells who work there?

A: No, because he is unelected.  But he can recommend to his boss (who is super-elected) to do those things, and that guy can do them, or not.

Q: Guess who else is unelected in the big DOGE vs. USAID battle?  

A: ALL of the USAID bureaucrats.

Q: Guess which branch of government USAID is part of? 

A: The executive branch. (Even though USAID bureaucrats don’t seem to believe that.)

Q: Guess who leads the executive branch?  (Hint: He is often called the “Chief Executive.”)

A: That’s right, the President. 

Q: What is the old-fashioned phrase that describes the USAID bureaucrats’ employment status with the President?

A:  They “serve at the pleasure of the President.”

Q: Do you think that the President is pleased by corrupt, obstructionist a-holes who are trying to sneakily undermine all of the policies he was elected to execute?

A: He is not.

Q: Finally, what is the word that describes someone who does what some of the USAID bureaucrats have been doing, i.e. refusing a legitimate President’s legal orders and secretly colluding to prevent him from doing what he was democratically elected to do?  (Hint: You’ve heard this word a lot in recent years.)

A: Insurrectionist.

Keep flailing, Dems.

Hogg/Warren 2028!

Many Dems Battle Many Republicans, and Don’t Do Well (posted 2/7/25)

Look people, I don’t have time for a witty introduction.   So yada yada yada…

AOC called Elon Musk “unintelligent” !!!

That’s not even a joke. 

I mean, it is a joke, obviously.  But I didn’t make it up.  AOC was warning about the dangers of letting Musk look for waste in the federal government, and she said the following real quote, in this word order, in front of a camera, in real life: 

“This dude is probably one of the most unintelligent billionaires I have ever met, or seen, or witnessed.  Which, you know, you can probably even glean that from watching these people on TV.  Anyways, all of that is to say, is that they don’t do their homework. Clearly, like, they’re putting 19-year-olds in with the Treasury.  This dude is not smart.”

When I first saw that, I started to analyze it, and quickly found many of the tell-tale signs of weapons-grade stupidity:

She’s not good with nouns – In the first sentence she refers to a singular person (“this dude”), but in the next three sentences she uses plural pronouns thrice, before returning to “this dude” again.  Which suggests that she doesn’t know the difference between singular and plural.

She’s 35 years old, and she uses the words “you know,” “Anyways,” and “like,” as if she were a none-too-bright tween.

And she follows the “anyways” with “all of that is to say, is that….”  In a six-word string she uses “that” twice and “it” twice, neither on purpose nor for rhetorical effect.

Plus, of course, she’s a former waitress who allegedly couldn’t get the simplest of drink orders right to save her life, but she’s critiquing the intelligence of a world-renowned genius.  It’s almost as if she can’t be trusted at all, about anything.

At this point, I’m even wondering if her booty is as juicy as we’ve been led to believe (her words, not ours)!

But the best part of this lopsided battle of wits is that it’s not an isolated incident.  In the 17 days since Trump was inaugurated, dozens of lefties have taken on dozens of Trump nominees and conservatives of various stripes.   

And the results have not only been great because the Dems have lost almost all of them, but also because the contests have been such beat-downs.  It’s like Mike Tyson vs. a middle school bully, or like Ali vs. Frasier.  (If by “Frasier,” you mean the effete white psychologist played by Kelsey Grammer on Cheers.) 

In addition to AOC vs. Elon, we’ve had Liz Cheney vs. Elon (bragging about taking USAID money isn’t the winning tactic she thought it was) and NJ Governor Phil Murphy vs Hulk Homan™.   

My favorite so far is probably when old warhorse Hillary thought she could do a canter-by attack on Sean Duffy right after an air disaster.  And we all found out that the old gray mare just ain’t what she used to be. 

When Duffy had tweeted that the DOGE team was going to “help upgrade our aviation system,” Cankles McPantsuit thought she saw an opening. 

She tweeted, “They have no relevant experience.  Most of them aren’t old enough to rent a car. [This from an old crone who was once asked about wiping a computer server, and said, “You mean like with a cloth?” And no one knew whether she was serious, or just lying.] And you’re going to let them mess with airline safety that’s already deteriorated on your watch?”  

Yes.  Mayor Pete turned over a pristine airline system to Sean Duffy, and it then “deteriorated”… in the next seven days. 

Duffy responded, opening with one of my favorite rhetorical devices: the introductory “with all due respect.”  Whenever you hear that, you know that what follows is going to be disrespectful as hell.  (For example, from the great Paulie Walnuts on the Sopranos: “All due respect T, the guy’s half a fanook.  We oughta whack him.”)

Duffy’s response: “Madam Secretary, with all due respect, ‘experienced’ Washington bureaucrats are the reason our nation’s infrastructure is crumbling.  You need to sit this one out.”

Despite taking that shot across the fetlock, Hillary thought she’d go back for more: “US airlines had gone 16 years without fatal crashes.  Then MAGA fired the FAA chief, gutted the Aviation Security Advisory Committee, and threatened air traffic controllers with layoffs.  Now there have been two fatal crashes.  Hope your unvetted 22-year-olds fix things fast.”

Apparently cause and effect are not Hillary’s strong suit.  Neither are optics, since this kind of sniping before funerals have even been arranged is far from a good look.  But then again, Hillary has always been a mudder.   

So Duffy put the whip to her like he was a jockey heading into the final turn.  I recommend reading his whole three-paragraph response, but the opening and closing sentences will give you the flavor: 

“I know you’re lashing out because DOGE is uncovering your family’s obscene grifting via USAID, but I won’t let you lie and distort facts…. Your team had its chance and failed.  We’re moving on without you… and yes, we’re bringing the 22-year-olds with us.”

Ouch! 

And nothing else was heard, except for the sound of a set of sad, staggering hoofbeats retreating into the distance. 

Even when the lefties have ganged up on their opponents, they’ve still gotten trounced.  Consider the following blowouts:

Every Dem Senator vs. Kash Patel

Every Dem Senator vs. Pam Bondi

Every Dem Senator vs. RFK Jr.

A roomful of jaded MSM veterans vs 27-year-old Karoline Leavitt.  (They saw what looked like a fresh-faced sorority girl, expected a dimwit like KJP, and walked into a whirlwind of head butts, hard elbows and rib kicks that left them lying on the press room floor wondering what happened.)

All the gals on the View vs. Reality

And of course Trump has been stomping various lefties – Dems, reporters, foreign leaders – like Godzilla tromping through downtown Tokyo.  He’s dispatched some with tariffs, some with his EO-signing pen, and some with his sharp tongue.

When he needed a minute to wipe the remains of Colombia’s president off of the bottom of his golf shoes, he tagged in JD, a blue-eyed killer who dispatched smarmy questioners without breaking a sweat.  My favorite was when he launched 1000 memes and left Margaret Brennen on the ropes with his, “I don’t really care, Margaret.”

Which is not quite, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.”  But it’s pretty close.

So far, the Dems have only notched two wins: a Stiff Wind vs. Cocaine Mitch McConnell (by the knock down rule), and IL Governor Pritzker (#putdownthatcomicallyoversizedturkeyleg) vs. Anorexia (by knockout, 8 seconds into the first round).

Finally, amidst all the glorious sturm und drang of these first 17 days, I did not see the story coming that might end up as one of the most important: the USAID scandal.  I don’t know if I’d even heard of USAID before, but now it appears that being linked to USAID may soon be more damaging to reputations than being linked to Epstein’s Pedo Island. 

One scandal story is a witch’s brew of skeevy behavior, sleazy scumbags, and screwing everybody in sight. 

And the other is about Epstein’s island.

Hogg/Warren 2028!

Dems Jump on Colombian Tariffs and NJ Gov. Murphy Antagonizes Hulk Homan, and Both Quickly Regret It (posted 2/5/25)

One challenge about writing about politics right now is that the lightning pace of developments is continually making whatever you write almost immediately outdated.  For example, think of the poor Dems who jumped on the “Trump tariffs Colombia” story.

Trump was on the golf course, learned that Colombia’s president said he wouldn’t accept planeloads of Colombian criminals back, and fired off a “here come the tariffs” threat.   Then he laced a drive down the middle of the fairway on a par 5.

AOC immediately got off her juicy booty [her words, not mine] and wrote a tweet about the apocalyptic coffee shortage that would engulf America in 1000 years of darkness. Ana Navarro started wailing about how she wouldn’t receive any Colombian flowers for Valentine’s Day.  (Yes, sweetheart. THAT’S why you won’t be getting flowers!) 

And Grandma Squanto strung her bow and started putting on her warpaint over the imminent Colombian catastrophe.   (#wemustneverstopmockingher)

But the lefty outrage tweet storm had barely gotten off the launching pad when the Colombian president submitted like Que Mala in a job interview with Willie Brown.  Before Trump could putt out on that par 5, he’d won, and the lefty hysterics had to quietly lower their dresses from over their heads, and slink away in humiliated silence. 

Well I’m having a similar problem, except in the opposite direction.  Before I can finish lacerating some idiotic lefty plan of attack, the attack blows up in the lefties’ faces, confirming my correctness while also rendering my response obsolete.

The latest example is provided by dimwit NJ governor (from guess which party) Phil Murphy.  (Rumors that Punxsutawney Phil is smarter than Phil Murphy have not been confirmed.  But don’t need to be.  Because, duh!)

In a televised interview this weekend, Murphy bragged that he has been harboring an illegal above his garage, and dared the Feds to come and get her.  This was a classic case of a beta male cosplaying as a tough guy.  (See: Davy Hogg growing the kind of pathetic beard that a gender dysmorphic gal grows after she’s been injecting testosterone for a few months.)

It was also classic Murphy.  (Rumors that “Murphy’s Law” was coined about this doofus have not been confirmed.  But c’mon.) 

So I read about this last night, and started writing a sarcastic little bit of deathless prose about it, to the effect of, “Murphy is going to regret confessing to a crime on video after Tom “Yippie-ky-yay MFer!” Homan hears about it.  Because that lean, mean deporting machine is going to make poor Phil not just THINK he’s seen his shadow – he’s going to be afraid of his own shadow!” 

I’d started with a few trenchant “Phil Murphy is dumber than Punxsutawney Phil” and “Murphy’s Law was named after this dope” jokes, and was just involving the ghost of Sam Kinison in the fun (“Hey Phil, you know one thing that might not be a smart move for a sitting governor to do? [begin Kinison filter]  CONFESSING TO A FELONY ON CAMERA, YOU DIPSH*T!  OH!!  OHHHHHHH!!!” [end Kinison filter]), when the news broke:

Phil Murphy furiously backpedals, claiming that his statement that he was harboring an illegal had been “misinterpreted.”

D’oh!  Can you morons at least give me enough time to take some batting practice on your moronic actions and words before you unravel like a cheap suit? 

Regardless, I love Murphy’s lame response.  First, because it was delivered by a “representative” of his, undoubtedly a poor schmuck who has to be questioning all of the life choices that led him to becoming a rep for Phil freaking Murphy.

Second because it is SO dumb.  Murphy’s comments have been “misinterpreted?!”   He literally said, “We said, let’s have [the illegal] live at our house above our garage.  And good luck to the feds coming in to try to get her.”

That’s not some obscure paragraph from Finnegan’s Wake or the Book of Revelation that requires a lengthy, tortured exegesis to interpret.  The guy said that he’s been harboring an illegal in his garage, and dared Hulk Homan to come and get her. 

(And don’t try to steal “Hulk Homan,” because I am hereby copywriting it.  But I am open to a joint venture with any t-shirt printers in CO Nation to produce a line of clothing with images of Homan’s head on top of a giant, green, muscular body.)

Then: one… hour… lay-tair…

Murphy’s miserable, flop-sweating rep is fidgeting in front of cameras like a slightly more masculine Karine Jeanne-Pierre.  “No, no, no.  When the governor said, ‘I’ve got an illegal living in my garage,’ what he meant was, ‘I definitely DON’T have an illegal living in my garage.’   See?  It’s just all a big misunderstanding.  And a misinterpretation.  You remember when Tampon Tim Walz said, ‘I’m just a knucklehead?’  It’s like that.”  

By the way, during the Dems’ covid hysteria, Phil Murphy had New Jersey residents arrested for going to the gym.  Because “no one is above the law.”

Also, according to Title 8 of U.S.C. 1324, penalties for harboring an illegal immigrant include fines up to $250K and imprisonment for up to 5 years. 

But after he’s done three years inside, we’ll let Phil walk out into the prison yard. 

If he sees his shadow, he’s got two more years in the can. 

Hogg/Warren 2028!

Watching Democrat Senators Beclown Themselves at the Confirmation Hearings (posted 1/31/25)

After only two weeks of watching the Democrat senators’ questioning of Trump’s cabinet nominees, I’m beginning to suspect that many Dem senators are undercover “plants.”  How else can you explain the self-discrediting buffoonery of Sheldon Whitehouse, Grandma Squanto, Ron Wyden, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, Dick “nobody calls him Richard” Durbin and Richard “everyone secretly calls him Dick” Blumenthal et al?  

Seriously.  Just like Hezbollah terrorists were tricked into blowing themselves up by giving them pagers, these knuckleheads were tricked into blowing their credibility up by giving them microphones. 

Dick Blumenthal is the most famous “stolen valor” perpetrator in DC, having lied about serving in Vietnam.  So sure, have him question the military qualifications of decorated combat veteran Pete Hegseth.

Ron Wyden has a waxy, unhealthy appearance that is truly tough to look at.  So sure, have him tout his expertise about health to attack RFK Jr. 

Sheldon Whitehouse is named “Sheldon,” and he deserves it.  He’s the Ted Baxter of the Senate: nice, full head of white hair, on top of an empty, bloviating head. 

I loved his tone-deaf arrogance when he confronted Kash Patel with a mangled quote of his, demanding to know, “Is that what you said?”  When Patel said, “That’s completely incorrect, and I appreciate the opportunity to address that—” Sheldon interrupted with, “I’ll give you opportunity, in writing, but this is my time now!”

Good lord! You’re supposed to be asking nominees questions in order to elicit their answers!  If you were just going to spit out some slander so that he can write you back later, what are you even doing here?

I wish Patel would have just pulled out his phone and started checking out websites.  Then when Sheldy objected, he could say, “Since I’m not allowed to respond, I’m going to let you have your time, while I check out the latest beating you’re taking in the comments section on “Sheldonisadouchebag.com”    

It got so bad that the dimwit senators were repeatedly being laughed at.  Who had, “An octogenarian socialist senator will angrily grill a grown cabinet nominee to renounce the message on an infant’s onesie!” on their confirmation bingo card?

The male senators made male viewers cringe, and the females did no favors for their pet cause of identity politics.  Amy Klobuchar waxed hysterical and grilled a guy without listening to him, and Grandma Squanto gave RFK her most grating “school marm on the warpath” impression. #wemustneverstopmockingher

By the way, a CNN headline on Thursday read, “Trump’s Cabinet nominees face sharpest grilling to date.”  “Sharpest?”  Really?  Nobody has ever associated “sharp” with anybody in this lineup.

In the end, of course, this kind of performative, narcissistic grandstanding is not going to persuade anybody.  The Dems could have used their opportunity to ask probing questions that might prompt substantive answers that could potentially catch nominees in inconsistencies or flaws in their thinking. 

Instead, they demonstrated that they’ve learned nothing from the electoral whipping they took in November.  They doubled down on amateurishly misleading accusations in lieu of questions, and childish cries of, “January 6th!” and “Orange Hitler!”  All of which can only remind most Americans of why they gave the GOP congress and the White House.

But it wasn’t only the Dems in the confirmation hearings who were playing the fool.  Because outside of DC, Tom “Yippee-ki-Yay MFer” Homan was doing God’s work – rounding up foreign criminals to make our streets safer.  But as usual, some leftist dullards opposed him.

This time the fight was in Illinois, where two US Secret Service agents went to a Chicago elementary school to investigate a threat that had been made on Tiktok.  There they introduced themselves to staff as Secret Service agents, and showed ID, but were not allowed entry to the school.

Soon afterwards, Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez (who is doing a bang-up job, considering the near zero per cent of Chicago public school students who can read, write or do math at grade level) went on MSNBC to falsely claim that ICE agents went to the school to detain illegal immigrant children.

Because of course he did.

Upon hearing that, Governor Pritzker (#putdownthatcomicallyoversizedturkeyleg) waddled into action, typing out the following tweet with his creepy, sausage fingers: “After a week of Republicans sowing fear and chaos, the first reports of raids in Chicago are at an elementary school.  Targeting children and separating families is cruel and un-American.”

So is allowing hordes of foreign criminals to prey on your citizens, and lying about it.  And also, scarfing down an amount of food in one day that could have been used to provide lunches for all the children in a large Chicago school for a month.

When Homan heard about Pritzker’s error, he went on Fox News to point out that Pritzker was the one who terrified the community by repeating a lie which he could easily have checked out first. 

He also mentioned that Pedro “Sherlock” Martinez could have used all of his powers of deduction to solve “The Case of the Phantom Ice Agents.”  Step one would have been to talk to the school officials, who would have told him that Secret Service agents who identified themselves as Secret Service agents – and who left their cards which identified them as… wait for it… Secret Service agents! – had come to the school.

Then, after filling several white boards with detailed notes and calculations, he could have arrived at the conclusion that these were NOT Ice Agents at all!

But nope.  Brainiac Martinez apparently graduated from a Chicago public school, so he reads at an AOC level.  And when he was trying to sound out “secret service,” he recognized the last three letters as “I – C – E.”  And off he ran to MSNBC.

Homan said that Pritzker needs to give ICE an apology, but he probably shouldn’t get his hopes up. Because even if Pritzker had the decency to apologize, there’s no way you’re going to understand a guy talking with his mouth that full.

Have a good weekend, and brace yourself for even more winning!     

The Winning Continues, Jim Acosta is Gone, & Trump is Re-Naming Everything! (posted 1/29/25)

Okay, I’m not saying that all of this winning has to stop. But it’s got to slow down a little bit.  Because I am getting nothing done!

It’s been 8 days since the inauguration.  Regular readers know that I’m a working dog, not a show dog, so typically, I get more done in 8 days than 10 men of normal powers do in a month. 

For example, in that time, I would usually be saying my prayers; playing with Cassie the Wonder Dog; mansplaining a bunch of stuff to my wife (which she always appreciates); nodding along and pretending to understand some astrophysics thing that my smarty pants daughter is trying to explain to me; maintaining my rental properties; doing good deeds; setting a good example; reading some good books; helping old ladies across the street; rescuing cats from trees and toddlers from house fires; explaining to young women who are getting a little handsy that I’m both married and way too old for them; laughing at my own jokes in my columns as I’m writing them…   

(For example, that “handsy young women” thing just cracked me up.  Because as they say, “It’s funny because it’s true.”)

…and just generally being a ray of sunshine in the lives of everyone I meet.

But not these last 8 days.  Because since the 20th I have been on the computer from dawn to dusk, just getting hammered by one wave of good news after another.  Ooh, Trump has signed a boatload of executive orders: illegals out of America, dudes out of women’s sports, and women’s jails, and women’s bathrooms. 

Wait, he just yanked security clearances for the 51 Russian laptop hoaxers!

Hey, he just fired a bunch of dead-weight bureaucrats from the “resistance” movement.

Ooh, he just canceled the bald-eagle-slaughtering, heavily subsidized windmills – including the whale-killing ones off the coast.  And he re-instated all of the soldiers who’d been bullied out of the service because they wouldn’t take an experimental shot to prevent a virus – which never would have killed them – from killing them.

Wait, let me get my head above wa—

Uh oh, more executive orders: no more racist DEI crap throughout our government; the life sentences for taking selfies in the capitol on January 6th are reversed; no more funding for the United Nations’ pro-Hamas “Jewish toddler-killing munitions” program.

And the personnel upgrades!  Won’t somebody think of the personnel upgrades!

Lyin’ “Lex Luthor” Mayorkas is gone, replaced by Tom “Yippee-Ki-Yay, Mfers!” Homan, who was just on tv, frog-marching another long chain gang of illegal, face-tattooed gang members out of my country.  We just traded corrupt and oily Merrick Garland for honest, disciplined Pam Bondi (giggity). 

Look there, in the White House briefing room!  It’s hyper-competent, smart and perky new press secretary Karoline Leavitt, replacing the ginger Circle-Back Lady, and the sapphic Kewpie Doll who could only answer questions by reading verbatim from her Lying for Dummies Briefing Book™

We just upgraded from Mayor Pete – whose only qualifications for Sec Transportation (I almost said, “SecTrans,” but that’s not a thing any more!) was being gay and liking choo-choo trains as a kid, to Sean Duffy, who just got confirmed with 77 votes.

I’ll be honest: I have no idea who Sean Duffy is.  But since he didn’t bring up his sexual preference in his confirmation hearings, and he’s never overseen a disastrous, toxic train derailment, and he’s never taken weeks of maternity leave time off to recover from giving birth to an adopted baby that he obviously didn’t give birth to, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that he’s going to do a better job than Mayor Pete did.   

Pete Hegseth will be a better SecDef than Lloyd “AWOL” Austin.  Mario Rubio will be a better SecState than a potted plant, which would have been a better SecState than Tony Blinken.  

And corrupt MSM leftist-bubble-dwellers are dropping like Bill Clinton’s pants in a sorority house!

Even TDS-suffering narcissist Jim Acosta is leaving!  (As Ben Shapiro used to say, “Ladies, find yourself a man who loves you as much as Jim Acosta loves him some Jim Acosta.”)  Acosta apparently lost half his audience in a car wreck shortly before Trump’s inauguration.  (All four of them were in a Prius that got stuck on train tracks when a train was coming.) 

So CNN offered him a show at midnight, opposite reruns of “Welcome Back, Kotter,” hour-long ads for My Pillow, and Korean-language broadcasts of Korean triple-A soccer games.  (Go, Busan Bandits!)

Acosta responded by telling CNN management that if they tried to shove him to midnight, they would just have to do without the services of one Abilio James Acosta!  

Annnnnddddd… he’s gone.

By the way, that’s his real name.  Since I’m a working dog – as I may have mentioned earlier – I did my research, and discovered that his parents named him “Abilio.”  Which, strangely enough, is Spanish for “a-hole.”  True story. 

I can even use it in a sentence: “Let’s put that abilio on at midnight, and dare him to quit!” 

I can hear many of you asking, as I write this, “Martin, did your extensive research turn up any more fun A-hole Acosta facts?”  And the answer is yes.  Yes, it did. 

For example, he is reportedly of mixed ancestry, a combination of English, Irish, Czech and Cuban.  But for the record, the embassies of England, Ireland and the Czech Republic have all  released official statements saying that they’re pretty sure he’s just Cuban. 

A phone call to the Cuban embassy was answered by a guy who wouldn’t give his name.  When asked about Jim Acosta allegedly being Cuban, he would only say, “Never heard of that abilio,” before hanging up.  

Trump offered Acosta a much-deserved verbal beat-down on his way out the door, in a tweet that (I swear I’m not making this up) featured the words, “one of the worst and most dishonest reporters…major sleazebag…BAD RATINGS… [and] no talent.” 

And that was the NICE part, which came before the hard sac-tap of an ending: “Jim is a major loser who will fail no matter where he ends up.  Good luck Jim!”  

Which, if my high-school Spanish hasn’t failed me, could be translated as, “No dejes que la puerta te golpee en el culo al salir.”  (But since it’s past January 20th and we don’t have to “Press 1 for English” anymore, I’ll re-translate: “Don’t let the door hit you in the abilio on your way out.”)

Even Trump’s sillier-seeming moves actually have substance behind them.  Changing the name of a mountain from Denali back to McKinley, and renaming the Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America are good examples.

I think it’s natural to laugh the first time you hear “Gulf of America.”  It feels cartoonishly patriotic.  I first thought of the short-lived fad of replacing “French” with “freedom” back when France was reverting to their “cheese-eating surrender monkey” form. 

It was funny to say, “For breakfast I’m having freedom toast, and for lunch my sides will be freedom fries and freedom onion soup.  And tonight, I’ll be plying my wife with freedom wine, after which I hope to be freedom kissing her as she slips off her freedom lingerie.”

But once you get past the initial reaction, you can see a more serious philosophical point beneath it.  Because naming things is a powerful expression of what a culture values.  Many American settlers named their cities and states after their original homes, which they still loved (New Amsterdam/New York, New Jersey, New England; Athens, GA; Paris, TX), or people they honored (the Carolinas, the Virginias, Williamsburg, Pittsburg, Cincinnati).

They named some towns after religious virtues (Hope, Temperance, Providence), or after religious figures (St. Paul, St. Augustine, Saints Francis and Monica – San Francisco and Santa Monica) or even “body of Christ” (Corpus Christi).  They named their colleges Holy Cross or Our Lady (Notre Dame). 

And later, when we’d produced our own civic heroes, we named towns and schools after them.  There are towns named Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln scattered across the land.  (I went to McKinley school for a few grades, and Lincoln grade school for a few more.)  We named a mountain after McKinley.

We also named many places after the Indian tribes or leaders whom – contrary to racist leftists’ slanders – we admired, and wanted to pay tribute to.  So there are counties or towns named Black Hawk, Sauk and Cherokee, and states named Illinois, Oklahoma and Minnesota, not to mention one primary Dakota, and another auxiliary Dakota.

But this trend is not just something conservatives do, as some angry lefties now suggest, as they rail against renaming mountains or gulfs.  You may have noticed that the Left has been on a name-changing spree in recent years, too. 

The small park in DC where the dozen protestors put up a guillotine on inauguration day is officially known as Meridian Hill Park, but the commie protestors renamed it “Malcolm X Park.”  As they renamed an intersection in Minnesota “George Floyd Square,” after one of their recidivist criminal heroes.  They’ve renamed many schools and parks, tossing presidents’ or generals’ names in favor of Cesar Chavez, Malcolm X, MLK and many more.

Most people approve of many of these changes, which again, reflect social changes.  While most people would balk at naming places after communists, or black criminals like Angela Davis or George Floyd, pretty much everyone is okay with various MLK sites.  And, with some caveats, most Americans are probably not too upset over removing Confederate names from various things.  (You won’t see a ton of Go-Fund-Mes with the theme, “Let’s keep the name of Nathan Bedford Forrest High School!”)

The point is that everyone changes names to reflect their own values. And if I had to pick a side, it’s an easy call to choose the one changing names to Gulf of America, Reagan National Airport or Mount McKinley, over those changing to George Floyd Square, Saul Alinsky Street, or Joy Reid Avenue. 

In this one rare instance, I agree with Tony Soprano’s instincts.  In one episode his son AJ came home from school spouting a bunch of leftist nonsense after reading Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States,” and touting his teacher’s preference for “Indigenous Peoples’ Day,” because of Columbus’ supposed villainy.

Tony was flabbergasted.  “Your teacher said that?”

AJ said, “It’s not just my teacher, it’s the truth.  It’s in my history book!” 

After wryly observing, “So you finally read a book, and it’s bullsh*t,” Tony laid down the law.  “He [Columbus] was a brave Italian explorer.  And in this house, Christopher Columbus is a hero!  End of story.”

Well in my house, we watch the Redskins play football and the Cleveland Indians play baseball.   We hope to one day climb Mount McKinley, and in the summer we like to read some Thomas Sowell at the beach, with our feet in the warm waters of the Gulf of America. 

End of story!

Opie, Pritzker, and the Leaders of Colombia & Planned Parenthood Get Whacked When Trump Settles All Family Business (posted 1/27/25)

Well, it feels like a year’s worth of action has been packed into the last seven days.  This might have to be another three-column week for me, since I can barely stay on my feet against the pressure of the firehose of good news coming out of the White House!  

But I’m going to try, so let’s start in Hollywood.

In another example of lefty artists making it hard to appreciate their art once they’ve opened their mouths to share their deep political thoughts, Ron Howard has “pulled a DeNiro.”  (I love DeNiro’s acting, Bruce Springsteen’s music, and many of Stephen King’s books, but they’ve all revealed themselves to be malevolent morons when it comes to politics, thus making it tougher to watch, listen to or read them.)

Howard was an adorable child actor, and directed a lot of good movies as an adult.  But this weekend he tweeted out a suggestion that if Trump wants to improve the Fed’s disaster responses, he should pick Chef Jose Andres to head up those efforts. 

I didn’t know much about Andres – a Venn diagram of hungry hillbilly Simpsons and a chef who serves dinners-for-two in the $1000 range would be two separate circles, a mile away from each other – but Howard notes that the chef is “not a supporter” of Trump’s.

A quick search shows that Andres was much angrier when some Palestinians were accidentally killed by Israel strikes than he was at the genocidal Hamas terrorists who intentionally murdered  Israelis.  Also, he is a hero among Democrats.  (Unexpectedly!) And he took a smiling picture with the whack job who tried to assassinate Trump at the golf course. 

To be fair to Andres, I’m assuming he took that pic before the whack job tried to murder Trump.  On the other hand, one should be able to spot that loon from a mile away, because he’s got “whack job” written all over him.

Anyway, Howard’s suggestion has all the earmarks of low-IQ Hollywood celebrity ideas: after four years of extreme-left Trump haters screwing up everything they touch, Trump really should consider appointing an extreme-left Trump hater to continue that tradition.

To quote Dr. Evil, “How about NO!”  And Ron, how about you focus on skipping rocks on a pond in Mayberry, and on making a good movie?  Because as soon as you turn to politics, you inevitably go from Opie to Dopey. 

Also, I find the first sentence of Howard’s tweet to be ironic: “Here’s a thought.”

Nope.  Here is most definitely NOT a thought.

Speaking of people for whom clear thinking is not a strong suit, how about Illinois governor J.B. “you can’t spell ‘Jumbo’ without ‘J.B.’” Pritzker, D-irigible?

His mouth is proportionately large enough for the rest of him (too bad about the brain, though), and he’s been regularly shooting it off on the subject of how he’s not going to cooperate with Trump’s enforcement of our immigration laws.  However, even he has started to tone it down a bit, now that Trump is in office.

He announced on Sunday that he has no problem with Trump deporting violent criminals, going so far as to say, “We hope they do get deported.” Which is rich, coming from him.  He’s done nothing to protect Illinois citizens from those scumbags for four years, and he’s not pledging to take action himself.  But now he’s “hoping” that the Deportation Fairy will come during the night and flit away with the predators, I guess.

But he’s not on board with deporting regular ol’ salt-of-the-earth illegal immigrants.  And this is where the Left’s mastery of dishonest language does some heavy lifting.

Because he tells sour Dana Bash that he finds it “quite disturbing” that Trump is also “going after people who are law-abiding, who are holding down jobs….”  A reasonable person might be aware that legitimate jobs require that the employee either has citizenship or legal working status (a green card or working visa).  

If the left can convince people to think of illegals as “undocumented,” their lying becomes easier to get away with.

But if we insist on using accurate language, Pritzker (#putdownthatcomicallyoversizedturkeyleg) is actually saying that we should not interfere with “law-abiding people who are here illegally and working illegally.”

Even someone with a weak and misfiring, Grandma-Squanto-level brain (#wemustneverstopmockingher) can tell that that sounds a little off. 

My favorite story of the weekend is probably yours too: the hilarious tale of the Colombia two-step. 

Since the election, I’ve been having a friendly disagreement with an extended family member about Trump’s use of tariffs.  He is afraid they will be rigid impositions that will severely damage our economy, while I am one of those nutty conservatives who thinks they are negotiating tools that Trump will use to get various foreign miscalculators’ minds right.

After Sunday, I hate to say, “I told you so.”  But how can I not?  When Colombia’s president Gustavo Petro forgot that Biden is not in office anymore, he talked tough about not taking his criminals back.  So Trump responded with immediate retaliatory tariffs, travel restrictions, and the like.

Of course, many lefties jumped on the story in a bunch of posts that aged like milk, immediately beclowning themselves in the most ridiculous ways. 

Ana Navarro panicked, “We won’t have any flowers for Valentines Day!” (To paraphrase Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, “I’ve never seen so many people worried that they won’t be able to receive roses on a romantic holiday for purely hypothetical purposes.”) 

AOC got her juicy booty (her words, not mine) spanked for shrieking that, “Trump is about to make every American pay even more for coffee,” and that, “WE pay the tariffs, not Colombia.”

These were variations on the usual Dem argument against deporting otherwise “law-abiding” illegals, because without them, we’ll have to clean our own buildings and toilets, and do our own landscaping, and pay more for strawberries. 

Because, “I don’t care if my country gets invaded, and crime increases, and our schools and emergency rooms and jails are filled with foreign criminals, and I get hit by unlicensed and uninsured foreign drivers, and my daughters get raped and killed like Laken Riley or Jocelyn Nungaray, as long as I get indentured servants to mow my lawn and feed me cheaper strawberries.”

SAID. NOBODY. EVER!

But as the Sponge Bob transition goes,

One… hour… lay-tair…

Petro said, “Oh, you were talking about THOSE criminals?  Sure, I’ll take them back.”  And then Trump silently gave him the “mug shot look” for an uncomfortably long minute.  And Petro began sweating, and said, “Um… and… I- I- I’ll pick them up… i- i- in my own presidential plane!”

And Trump gave him a small smile, and held out his hand to allow Petro to kiss his ring and swear fealty.   

I didn’t think that Trump would win so quickly, but I knew that he would win eventually.  Because common sense tells me that a small country needs trade with America a lot more than America needs that trade. 

I don’t think that means we should therefore bully small countries, just because we can.  But when they are trying to bully US?  Get out of here with that.

Even though I thought that the tariffs on Colombia would take much longer to work, I was still a fan, because of the message it would send to other nations, i.e. “pour encourager les autres” (for the encouragement of others). 

The phrase is Voltaire’s, and French, but it has a Sicilian feel to me.  And I’m here for it!      

Finally, on a more somber note, I never thought of God as a kind of Michael Corleone figure, working on a, “Today we settle all family business” kind of agenda.   And yet, it wasn’t tough to see some of those overtones on inauguration day.  (For starters, “God” is right there in “Godfather,” so how didn’t I see that coming?) 

Trump stood in the secular/civil version of a sacred space (the Capitol Rotunda) taking his vows, just like Michael took his in a church at a christening.  And while the vows were being recited, treacherous DEI bureaucrats and deep state saboteurs were getting whacked all over the countryside.  Executive orders were dropping like shotgun pellets blasting into elevators, and bullets into Moe Green’s glasses.

And on that very day, Cecile Richards – the ghoul who proudly oversaw 4 million lives cut short through her network of Planned Parenthood abortuaries – died. 

Normally, death is an event worth mourning, and one week is way too soon to discuss any silver lining in somebody’s passing.  But I think we owe it to Richards to take her worldview seriously, and assess her death in terms that someone in her line of work would wholeheartedly endorse. And none of her co-religionists who are enthusiastically carrying on her bloody work should be offended if we use their language to commemorate the event.  Therefore… 

“On January 20th, 2025, during their 271st trimester, the clump of cells known as Cecile Richards received a final act of women’s reproductive healthcare, which converted them into medical waste.  Anyone saddened by this news is probably a theocratic fascist, and certainly a misogynist, and should mind their own business.” 

Now if you’ll excuse him, Trump has to talk to Merrick Garland, whom he calls “Carlo,” for some reason. 

“You have to answer for Daniel Penny, Carlo….  Milley is out. So is Jack Smith.  Liz Cheney.  Kinzinger.  Today I settle all DOJ business.”  Garland’s lip starts quivering.  Trump puts his hand on his shoulder. 

“Don’t be afraid. (gestures over Garland’s shoulder) J.D., get him a drink.”  J.D. does, and Garland drinks it down.  Trump says, “Come on, I’m not going to make the wife of an ex-AG a widow.  No, your punishment is you never get to be on the Supreme Court.   But don’t tell me you’re innocent!”

Meanwhile, a car sits and idles outside the White House, with Tom Homan sitting in the back, behind the empty, passenger-side front seat.

And, scene.   

Trump Sprints Out of the Blocks, & the Philly Mayor Can’t Spell “Eagles”(posted 1/24/25)

It’s the first weekend of the new Trump era, and I’m in the mood to start out in Schadenfreude corner.

Tom Homan has been in charge of ICE for 4 days, and has already arrested 1400 illegals.  The vast majority of those had committed other crimes or else had had asylum requests rejected, and the remainder of them were “collateral arrests,” i.e. just plain illegals who were hanging around with the worst of the illegals when the hammer dropped.

Lefties call unintentionally catching those folks collateral damage, but normal people call it collateral benefits. 

You’ve probably seen the video of the handcuffed Haitian gang member with 17 prior convictions screaming out of a cop car, “F— Trump!  Biden forever, bro!  Thank Obama for everything he’s done for me!” 

He seems nice.

Man, if Trump was still running, he could slap an, “I’m Donald Trump, and I approve this message,” on the end of that and he’d have another world-class campaign ad. 

When asked about that criminal yelling, “I’m not going back to Haiti,” Homan said, “Well, he’s wrong.  He’s going back to Haiti.”  He also said that now that Trump’s in office, ICE agents have had the handcuffs taken off of them, and put onto the bad guys.

In an unrelated story, I spent the last hour looking at satellite photos of Mt. Rushmore, and I think I’ve found a good spot to begin blasting, to make room for adding Tom Homan’s big ol’ head up there. 

By the way, remember when Imhotep Pelosi – right after she tossed Biden’s desiccated corpse under the bus – said that she thought Joey Gaffes belonged on Mt. Rushmore?  HA!

Meanwhile, Scott Jennings continues to go through leftist CNN talking heads like Sherman through Georgia, leaving a scorched moonscape of ridiculous talking points and grievously wounded low IQ narcissists in his wake.

I know CNN brought him on in a desperate attempt to have at least one conservative voice on their failing network.  But I think the bubble they are in prevented them from appreciating what a bloodbath would ensue.  They probably thought, “Hey, he’ll be in a 5-against-1 situation on every segment, so how bad could it be?”

To which I would reply, “Do you know why nobody ever entered Mike Tyson at the height of his powers into a boxing tournament against an entire class of kindergartners?  Because it wouldn’t matter if there were 20 of them!  That would just increase the number of knocked-out baby teeth rattling across the floor like chiclets, you idiots!” 

Sorry for the graphic image.  But seriously.  Watch Scott Jennings taking on a panel of beta-males and sapphic scowlers, and try to keep the smile off of your face.  It can’t be done.

Speaking of CNN, you may remember their pollster, Harry Enten, who throughout the fall used lots of polls – and circled many numbers on many screens – to argue that Que Mala was likely to win in November.  He also polled Californians in the wake of the LA fires, and seemed shocked to find that the amount of computer searches for “wildfires” had soared something like 2400%, while searches for “climate change” had barely budged.

He really did that.  While Los Angelenos were surrounded by empty reservoirs, century-old power lines that were actively casting off sparks, and armies of homeless people making campfires in the midst of environmentally protected Dry Brush Sanctuaries (thanks, Gavin!), Enten couldn’t figure out why everybody wasn’t jumping on the “climate change caused the fires” bandwagon. 

Because you can’t spell “Einstein” without “Enten.” 

Well now, Harry is breathlessly reporting the shocking finding that there has been a “massive shift” among Americans in support for deporting illegals.  The bottom line is that 4 big polls found that between 55% and 64% of Americans want illegals forcibly vamoosed. 

While Harry is struggling to understand exactly why so many Americans believe that illegals contributed to climate change, I’ve got to say that those numbers seem too low.  I’ve seen a lot of polls in the last several years suggesting that over 70% of Americans want less LEGAL immigration.  If that’s true (and it seems logical), then these poll numbers today suggest that there’s less resistance to illegal immigration than there is to legal immigration!

Regardless, it’s a little surprising that even the mouth-breathers at CNN would be shocked and confused by these polls.  Regular people don’t approve of millions of people breaking our laws. DUH!

In other news, the lefties running The Daily Show might be feeling the consequences of their TDS-induced failures of late.  But instead of hiring Scott Jennings to serially pants their unfunny correspondents, they recently sent Triumph the Insult Comic Dog to mock the poor dead-enders attending the “People’s March” in Washington on Inauguration Day. 

If you haven’t seen it, you should, because it was very funny.  Highlights were when Triumph suggested that the left needs more conspiracy theories, and suggested a good one: “Jimmy Carter was doing just fine until Trump was re-elected.  Coincidence?”  Then he handed out hand-drawn “No Carter Killers!” signs.   He even came up with a chant: “GOP, stop the lies!  How did Jimmy Carter die?”

Most of the insults were silly, but a few of the shots hit closer to home.  As when he noted that nobody in this crowd was going to be breaking any windows at the capital, because “that would require upper body strength.”  And, “Looking around here, I’ve never seen so many people worried about losing the right to contraceptives for purely hypothetical reasons.”

I found the bit strangely heartening, because many of the leftists played along and laughed at the jokes at their expense.  And if the first step toward recovery is acknowledging that you have a problem, the second step has to be regaining your sense of humor.  It looks like some of them might be achieving step 2.

Now if they can just get working on that first step…

Finally, one more sobering note. 

Many people get furious when we suggest that making DEI hiring or election choices is foolish.  To counter their anger, serious conservatives can advance the hypothesis that the issue is often a simple math problem.

For example, when a terribly incompetent president – hypothetically – says that his vice presidential pick and his Supreme Court pick are both going to be black women, he has made a mistake.  Because black people are 13% of the population, and half of that number are women.  So he’s starting with an arbitrarily restricted applicant pool of only 6.5% of the population from whom he could otherwise choose.

Or, we could make a more succinct yet equally convincing argument, by showing a video of African-American female Philadelphia mayor Cherelle Parker leading excited residents in a cheer for the city’s football team, which has advanced to the NFC championship game.

Shouteth the mayor, “E-L-G-S-E-S!  Let’s go birds!” 

Oof!  “Eagles” is only two syllables.  It’s got six letters, and the mayor missed two of them.  Some wise guy immediately started making t-shirts with a Philly team motto printed on it: “Fly, ELGSES, Fly!”    

It’s not like the Philly mascot has an especially obscure or complicated name.  They’re not the Philadelphia Phainopepla, or the Philadelphia Common Paraque.  (Look ‘em up!)  I’m beginning to be grateful that she didn’t try to spell out “Philadelphia,” because you know she would have started with an “F.”    

And if any of you out there think that my extensive research doesn’t pay off, you’re wrong.  Because when I was looking up tough-to-spell bird names to make my hilarious point about the bonehead Philly mayor, I came across the Plain Chachalaca (rhymes with “Boom Shakalaka!”).  Which I’m sure Parker couldn’t spell, but could definitely chant. 

And no one in their right mind would prefer, “Eagles! Eagles! Let’s go birds!” to “Philly, Philly!  Plain Chachalaca!!”

By the way, the last Republican mayor of Philadelphia left office 73 years ago. Democrat voters outnumber Republicans 7-to-1, and they elected brainiac Cherelle Parker to lead them. 

UNEXPECTEDLY!

The Entertaining Confirmation Clown Show, & a Guy Caught For Child Porn is Exactly Who You’d Expect (posted 1/17/25)

I’m hoping that at least a few of you in CO nation, as you’ve been watching the confirmation hearings this week, have thought to yourself, “Wow, I hope Martin is watching this, because they are giving him a target-rich environment of mock-worthy shenanigans.” 

And holy cats, is that an understatement!  This has been a “can’t-stop-watching-it” disaster epic like I haven’t seen since Joe Biden visibly decomposed in that debate.  It’s got everything you want in a classic freak show.  The bearded lady.  (I’m not specifying which.)  The Amazing Neckless Senator.  The white Indian.  (#wemustneverstopmockingher)  The chinless wonder.  The Incredible Oblivious Man.  The Strong (smelling) Man.  (Proofreading note: confirm that Swalwell was in the room before I go with this one.)

With this number of eyeballs on a telegenic 100-clown-car pile-up, I think potential advertisers who didn’t arrange to sponsor it left big money on the table. How did Big Methadone not pay for the tv rights to this?!

I picture a big banner at the back of the room, and chirons on the bottom of tv screens: “The 2025 Nomination Hearing/Witch Hunt Extravaganza.  Brought to you by Methadone.  “When Heroin is No Longer working, but You’re Not Ready for Sobriety Yet.  Methadone!”

Of course it wouldn’t be a high-profile DC event without far-left weirdos interrupting the proceedings.  But every time one of them starts hollering incoherently like the homeless cat lady on the Simpsons, I find myself asking the obvious question: Are tasers broken? 

If not, and if you must allow emotionally unstable people in, just position a security guy behind each of them, with a taser out and hovering about six inches from the back of their necks.  And as soon as they start the gibberish, see which security guy can get his assignee to do the best “salmon jumping upstream to spawn” impression.  Monetary awards to the winners.

And it’s not like the protestors are hard to spot, guys.  We all know the tell-tale signs:

Crazy eyes

Wild, fly-away Bernie Sanders hair

General dishevelment

A terrorist dishrag (you say “keffiyeh,” I say “terrorist dish rag”) around their necks

Carrying a small cardboard sign riddled with misspellings and out-of-place exclamation marks

Odd pink clothing that suggests either someone in an impoverished Third-World traveling circus who couldn’t afford traditional clown costumes, or the gayest Nazi you’ve ever seen in your life. 

If anybody comes in who checks three or more of those boxes, pre-position the security crew’s taser squad, and prepare to light them up!  And if they accidentally tase Bernie Sanders – hey, he checked the first three boxes – I think we can all live with that. 

Because the Democrat senators are generally only half a standard deviation less crazy than the protestors.

It’s hard to even pick which senator put in the worst performance.  Grandma Squanto and Kirsten Gillibrand were over-the-top annoying, as were many others.  But if pushed, I’d say that the three who were definitely on the medal stand (in the Horse’s Arse floor event) were Schiff, Hirono and Blumenthal.  Hegseth and Bondi made all three of them look ridiculous.  

The visuals alone, when Crazy Mazie was interrogating Pam Bondi, were brutal.  Bondi looks like Pam Bondi, while Hirono looks like a troll who found some talking points under a bridge and shambled up to a microphone to read them.   

One highlight was when Hirono bizarrely asked Bondi if she had ever “made any unwanted sexual advances” to anyone.  (I yelled the line she should have used at my tv: “UNWANTED?  No.”)

She and Hegseth both ran circles around Dick “nobody calls him Richard” Durbin and Richard “everybody secretly calls him Dick” Blumenthal.  The latter is a particular enigma to me, because for years he falsely claimed to have served in Vietnam, and yet he eagerly launched one thinly disguised attack after another at Hegseth, an actual combat veteran.  (Schiff did something similar, brushing it off when Bondi nailed him about how he’d been censured for making the same kind of dishonest statements he was throwing at her.)   

Which brings up a fundamental question of human psychology: How can some reasonably functional people be either completely oblivious or so lacking in shame that they can blithely expose themselves in ways that would humiliate a normal person?

I think I’m pretty normal.  ([engage Moe Howard voice] Quiet, you!) And as a normie, I share most people’s tendency to remember negative feedback and criticism more than compliments.  As a professor,  I’d generally get very high ratings from students, with lots of comments like “This is the funniest professor I’ve ever had” and, “If it wasn’t for our age difference, I’d throw myself at him shamelessly.” 

But all of those blur together, while the relative handful of negative comments stick in my mind.  For example, from November of 2006: “I agree with People Magazine that George Clooney deserved to narrowly beat out Dr. Simpson for “Sexiest Man Alive.” 

That was 18 years ago, and it still stings.

But these people can stand up in front of God and everyone and say the most self-mortifying things.  Blumenthal should be ashamed to show his face in public within a mile of a veteran.  Schiff and Hirono should hide their faces everywhere, on general principle. 

Meanwhile, Democrats outside the hearings were making themselves look just as bad.  Biden gave a truly pathetic goodbye address, filled with lies from beginning to end, stitched together with self-pity.  But the pouting didn’t stop there, as “Dr.” Jill bad-mouthed Nancy Pelosi, and KJP gave one final petulant press briefing.

Also, there’s bad news for those of you who wanted a bulky, run-stopping presence in the middle during the inauguration: Michelle Obama has announced that she won’t attend, because she’s “not a phony.” 

Which is a nice touch, since her phony husband will be attending.  (I’d guess that Barry would be pretty upset about that, and might even stand up to her.  Until he thinks about whether he really wants her to beat his scrawny, hypocritical arse and grind his bones, like the giant in Jack and the Beanstalk.)

Also, Imhotep Pelosi isn’t going, either.  She did make it to Trump’s 2017 inauguration, wearing some tasteful burial wrappings and that frozen Botox half-scowl of hers.  Sources say that this will be the first inauguration she will miss since she started her attendance streak at the deification ceremony of Cheops the Unsteady in the Valley of the Kings in 2563 BC.  

One of my favorite examples of leftists gnashing their teeth has to be the press’ reaction to the shake-up in the White House press room, moving the terrible MSM outlets toward the back of the room, and the “new media” up front.  I don’t think that move would have been necessary if the MSM had just been hostile to Trump, because a skeptical and questioning media is necessary in a democratic republic.

But they haven’t been that.  They’ve been instinctively and thoroughly dishonest and biased, which is not tolerable in a free country’s media.  They’ve been supine boot-lickers for leftists, selling one big lie after another (Joe Biden is super compos mentis, the laptop is Russian disinfo, etc.), and deranged slanderers of everybody with an R beside their name.  (While only 55% of them deserve it!)

A secondary, but still great reason for the reshuffling: the whole point of a press corps is to get information out to the public.  So it’s illogical to give prime press room real estate to the legacy media, whose plummeting viewership and readership means that the info they spin and distribute will go largely unseen. 

Plus there’s the schadenfreude-tastic optics of watching the arrogant MSMers being marched to a back corner, from where they have to jump and wave their hands and yell, in the usually vain hope of being called on. 

If I were Trump I’d double-down and troll them even harder.  I’d try to make the back of the room look as much like a musty, far corner of a basement as I could.  I’d install a wheezy old boiler, and dump off a bunch of used sports equipment and damp bags of pesticides, and have White House aides spread fresh dust around every morning. 

And spiders.  Lots of spiders. 

Finally, I’ll close with one more story from Schadenfreude Corner:

Darrin Bell is a far-left cartoonist who produces tired, lame and lazy cartoons.  Many of them communicate the wildly creative and original implication that Republicans are Nazis, and that Trump is a Nazi.  For that kind of brilliance, he was awarded a Pulitzer prize, and an NAACP Image Award (he’s black) in 2024.

At least two of his cartoons had mocked the GOP contention that sexually grooming children is happening, and that it’s bad.  One had an elephant opening his trenchcoat in front of toddlers, labeling him as a groomer.  But what he revealed to the kids was a sign around his neck reading “bigotry.” Get it?  Conservative bigotry is the real threat to children.

In another, a rage-distorted, split-faced white male – MAGA hat wearer on the left, Nazi on the right – screams “Groomer,” presumably at the sane, moral lefties who just want to include child porn books in school libraries.  As healthy, salt-of-the-earth types do, I guess.

Well, on Wednesday the 15th, Darrin was arrested for… wait for it…possessing and distributing over 100 videos of child pornography.  UNEXPECTEDLY!

Providing yet more proof of two time-worn adages: 

1. Every accusation is a confession, and

2. It’s always the ones you most suspect.

Put the champagne on ice, because Monday is coming, people!